


I Believe In The Fallen

by LovelyLunacy



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Edited, F/F, F/M, Hints of LoVe, Other, Reworked, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:45:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLunacy/pseuds/LovelyLunacy
Summary: They're just survivors, just humans with a driving need to live and find hope. It's instinct, even to hope in the darkest of times, but the creature in the dark knows how to break the hope, knows how to use the vibrant rays as wrathful spikes. This is the story of how much it takes to break someone - how much it takes to break anyone - and how hope itself is weakness.





	1. The First Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, if you're just finding this work, congrats, it's been through a lot. If you're re-finding this work, I'm sorry it vanished. A stressful incident made me take all of my fiction down with no intents to repost, but I was convinced to by someone dear to me. The silver lining is that the reworking of this created an opportunity to add in Rin, who is currently my absolute favorite killer.  
> Whether this work is new to you, or a welcome return, remember to comment for me. It really does help. 
> 
> Remember, believe.

Sally could not bring herself to guess what had led them all here.

She stared dully into the campfire, struggling to remember how many days had passed since they all woke, some screaming and some trying to flee. Running only led them in a circle, back to the campfire and its familiar flames.

The approaching stomp of feet caught her attention and she glanced up as Evan returned to the light. He tossed down the rabbits he'd caught with a sneer. “There.” He said, plopping himself down on one of the logs without any of the dignity his birth had bestowed. He gestured at the small girls near the fire, the black one who was always cold because she had no meat to her and the Japanese one with horrid silver scars but bright clever eyes. Sally knew the cold one’s story, had patched and tended her wounds to bring her to some form of normality, but could not muster the energy to chide the cocky man on his treatment of the girl. The paler girl’s eyes burned with resentment, but her mouth remained a stoic line.

The cold one, Lisa, scuttled over to the rabbits on her thin legs and the Japanese girl followed suit, her movements fluttering and jerky. Sally joined them, though her walk was much more trudging. She was just shy of forty, though she didn't know if she would ever see another birthday. Together they skinned and gutted the rabbit, before setting them up on spits near the fire. Lisa sprinkled the herbs she had gathered on the meat, murmuring words over it in a soft lulled tone. Sally didn't believe in the girl's “magic” herself, but whatever eased her. 

“Bluciblirm!” The group around the fire collectively flinched as the strangest among their number shouted. Lisa’s pale shadow, Rin, slid closer to her frail friend, though not for protection. To protect. Sally turned to the disfigured, hideous boy and cooed at him. “Soon, soon, Tommy. We'll eat soon.” She held out a hand to him and he considered the offering for a long minute before taking her hand. She settled with him, content to hold his hand as long as it would keep him quiet. Her patience was boundless, it seemed, and no one around the fire knew the limits of it, besides her.

“Stop your muttering,” Evan snapped, causing the small girl to flinch and Rin to stiffen. Lisa tried to move faster and Sally's eyes moved to the unpleasant man. 

“Leave her be,” she snapped, her energy rising with anger. She could see his own rising in challenge and then he had to flinch out of the way as a stick went whirling past his head. The girl who had thrown it, probably in her early twenties, wasn't even looking at him by the time everyone focused on her. She wore a tiger's mask, but her eyes seemed haunted and also childlike. She stared into the fire for a long moment before moving to help with the rabbits, her hands moving with the small wraith's and broken girl’s.  

Evan's pride was obviously grated but when he rose to deal what he felt was righteous justice, a brown hand stopped him. “Sit.” came the calm voice, their quietest member. “Food will put you to rights. Just wait.”

Philip's words had done enough and Evan sat back down. They all ate small amounts and then tiny Lisa screamed. “Not again, not again!” she cried, clutching at her face. Rin’s arm was around her immediately, bleak knowledge growing in her black eyes. Everyone understood as their own visions started to darken. They faded away into nothingness.

~~

The redhead found herself in a purple wood, behind a rock and a tree intertwined. She had never seen this place before and she focused on gathering her surroundings before she moved. In the distance, she could see an old mine shaft surrounded by crates. Further there were logs piled up, once ready to be shipped off, and she shuddered in memory. Just one of them could crush a man and erase every hope in life.

A scream dragged her from her reverie and she studied the distance past the mining shaft. She knew someone was injured, over there, gravely injured, but not down. She was headed that way before she even really decided to, the drive to help overwhelming. She had always been possessed by the unshakable urge to take care of others, to nurture and protect. Andrew had always said it would make her a good mother. The words, faded over the years, still came to her sometimes. Either it broke her heart or strengthened her need to care. This time it was the latter.

She found the cause of the scream. Little Lisa was huddled over, clutching her leg that was locked in a vice-like bear trap. She moved forward, pulling the jaws apart gingerly. She spoke gently, as she always did to the young girl, who looked younger because of her size. “Lisa, what...”

“I don't know, Sally,” her voice, as always, was so soft but strained. The nurse was already wrapping up the wound and as per the entity's usual games, the injury was knitting together rapidly. “I just... I never had to look at my feet before... this is different. Usually it's the spikes, from the sky, the trees, in the basement... there have never been traps before.”

“We'll just be careful, honey.” Sally helped her stand and the two moved together to one of the flashing machines that ruled their lives here. The older woman let the girl take the safest side, unconsciously protecting her. She wondered why she couldn't hear any pulsing, nearing them. Usually someone was running by now.

A tiger's face appeared beside them, the human mouth curled in an expression of disgust. She dropped a dismantled trap beside them. “I do not understand these changes,” her voice was low, almost guttural. “The creature is planning something – something has altered and I do not think we are prepared.”

“Lisa got trapped in one earlier... how did you know how to destroy it?” Sally paused in her work just long enough to ask. Anna had not even attempted to touch the machine – she rarely did, because she hated electricity.

“It was like the claws, but no defense. I will hunt out more of them – do your work.” The strange girl was gone, vanishing easily into the wooded terrain. They were all strange, but Anna was definitely her own being.

The generator roared to life in front of them after only a few more moments. Sally's discomfort at the lack of danger changed when she started hearing it – the heartbeat that indicated the danger approached. She made the immediate decision to distract from Lisa and she started running. She’d gotten much better at it - the constant fear and the entity’s influence made her much faster than she had ever been in her previous life.

She finally looked behind her after they had crossed half the arena, near the mine shaft. She paused for half a second, stricken with fear at the imposing figure. A tall man, though calling the beast that was generous, with metal scraps protruding from his reddened skin, was striding towards her with terrifying speed. He wore a rubber apron over his chest and his face was covered with a mask that could have easily been human skin. The thought made her own crawl in revulsion.

She screamed as he struck her with a blade and felt a surge of adrenaline. She had never seen a beast like this in the fog – the manifestations were always from her past, not from hell itself. Whose demon was this?

She threw her aching body through a window and as her foot came down, she screamed again. She had found herself in a trap, and he was upon her.

“Caught you, bossy bitch.” His voice was familiar through the haze of pain, echoing through her head as she tried desperately to recognize and place it. He hauled her up onto his shoulder and that sent more sickening pain through her. She started struggling, letting the pain fuel her panic.

“Wiggle all you want, Sally, you can't get away from me. Not here – my own stomping grounds.” The voice was drawing up a face and just as she remembered, she felt a hook tear through her chest. This.. was different.

“Evan,” she gasped, weakly. “But... you can't be... what happened to you?”

He laughed, full and his head thrown back. “I'm free. I finally took what he was offering us all – freedom to be what we truly are. Killers. We're all killers, Sally, we're all monsters. We just get to be true to ourselves here,” he paused, studying her. He stepped back. “but I see you don't believe it yet. You still believe in the good. Don't worry, Sally, you'll be free too... but until then, I hope I catch you in more of my traps. Your screams are delicious.”

He turned and returned to the fog. She hung limply from the hook, unable to muster the energy to even look around. Her head was reeling and that was all the movement she could stand. The next time she was aware, gentle hands were lifting her. She blinked and found herself looking into concerned, if cautious, brown eyes.

“Philip... thank you.” She said, shoulders slumping a little. The hole where the hook had been was gone, as if it were just a nightmare. But the hook behind her was wet with her blood. “Have... have you seen him?”

“Yes... it is Evan. I heard him speak to you, but I do not understand. It appears as if the Entity has broken his mind.” She could see the lingering thought behind his words – if this was the fate that awaited them all. Seeing the worry in another heart strengthened her resolve. It would not be them. It would never be them. She could protect them all - let the entity break her first, if it could.

“Where is he?” She let him bandage her, searching around as he did.

“Chasing Lisa,” his tone was almost sad, “but she is slight – slippery.”

“No.” Sally was upright just as he finished and she tore off into the dark. Lisa was the smallest, the weakest of them all, and Sally would have protected her for that alone, but something more quickened her step. Rin, lost in the swirling fog while they endured this trial, would be heartbroken if something so awful befell Lisa. 

She caught sight of them just as Lisa was struck down. He slashed at her again for good measure, making the small girl scream, and then pulled her onto his shoulder. The redhead had already made her decision, she just had to plan it.

She saw his destination and she ran to beat him. She stood in front of the hook, defiance burning in her blue eyes. His eyes met hers with rage.

“Move.” He snapped, tightening his grip on the writhing little girl. “Let me hook the meat scrap here and I’ll come after you.”

“Make me,” came her response, immediate, fearless. Anger cradled her and kept her strong.

He slashed at her and she flinched but stood her ground. He seemed to have to hesitate before he could raise his weapon again and just like that, Lisa wriggled off. She shot off into the dark and Sally started to run. She made it two steps before the blade caught her again. She didn't bother wiggling and the hook tore through her again.

“Stupid uppity bitch.” He hissed, slashing at her hanging form. She screamed, but it wasn't what he was looking for. Then the claws appeared, around the hook, reaching for her. She grabbed the one nearest her neck with strength she didn't realize she had, doing all she could to keep it from killing her.

He laughed again. “I'll let you hang like that for a while. Teach you a lesson. And I'll get that little wretch too – don't you worry.”

He was gone and there was only the struggling. At least the spikes were familiar, though that was a poor comfort. She saw the girl approaching a moment later and Anna pulled her free.

She hesitated, looking up at the girl – taller than her, not really a girl at all except for that look to her eyes. Anna met her eyes unyielding for one moment and she felt the respect that gesture meant, and then it was gone. The masked tiger was healing her and she just let it happen.

“H-how many... generators...”

“We have finished four – one I did alone. The beast has given me some belief.”

“It's Evan.”

“I am aware. He was always a beast.”

Sally chuckled, finding the seriousness with which she said it so refreshing in the dim. Then she heard the last one roar to life in the distance. Relief filled her and she followed Anna to a door. The girl started opening it, the long loud process that left them vulnerable.

In the distance, she heard a shout and her heart fell. Philip. Anna had barely looked up to see her gone, back into the fog.

Sally saw the beast after the man into the mine shaft and she launched herself through a window. She saw Philip backed into a corner, into the pit of dirt that apparently closed off the shaft.

“Evan!” Her voice echoed in the suffocation pit, distorted by the energy of the place. The beast turned around, that fire reappearing in his eyes. The hatred. He came after her without hesitation and she ran. She heard Philip running as well, in the other direction, and she felt a burst of triumph in her chest.

It was short-lived. Moments later, the blade cut through her again and she turned to head back towards the open exit gate, certain the others would be safe now. She could make it, she just had to believe. She threw down a pallet between trees and heard his grunt of surprise. Another burst of triumph sent her speeding and then, with the exit gate in sight, she felt jaws close around her ankle. She screamed in pain, crashing down around the crushed limb.

His laughter burned her soul as he hauled her up again onto his shoulder. “I told you you couldn't get away,” there was something else to his voice, some growing danger that she couldn't quite understand yet. The meat hook tore through her back and immediately the spikes tore through her, pulling her into the sky. This was familiar too, the darkness and unnatural immobile chill the entity existed in.

She was lost in blurs of memory – a middle-aged man's face telling her that her life was over, that her heart was dead. A priest striking a pale girl to the ground. The screams in a room that only held breathing. The worst aspects of her life put on display and the knowledge that this was all that was left.

Still, underneath it all, she remembered the moment of respect in Anna's eyes, Lisa relaxing as she was healed, Philip's concerned face, Tommy’s trust, Rin’s devotion. She huddled around those memories like they were stars in the abyss and the entity's presence receded.


	2. If Only He Could Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more Rin incorporation here, but not much because I was unwilling to sacrifice others' character development for it.

Evan gripped the blade tighter, a fierce grin on his face. It was hidden by a mask, but it was no matter – the glee suffused his being. This was where he was at his strongest, at his best – here, his old stomping grounds. Standing on top of the old mine shaft cover, he could smell the coal below and another scent that he could only describe as raw destruction, below even that. The suffocation pit was his favorite place - it was the place he had finally become free.

_ He had spent all night weakening beams within the mine shaft, making it to where any large enough disturbance would bring it all crashing down - which was the plan. The insurance money would go to his father and the tragedy would being attention to their company. It was an entirely winning scenario - except for the miners of course, but in the grand scheme of things, they were mere pawns. They didn’t matter. _

_ It had only recently stopped amazing him, his capability to dismiss human life. His father had raised him with a disdain for the poor, for anyone darker than him, for women, for the unfortunate. He was the prime example of what humanity could be and anything less deserved to be treated as such. _

_ A brief stint in college had challenged these worldviews and when he came home after graduation, he’d challenged old Macmillan’s philosophies - but he still remembered the words that had shaken him of his foolish notions. “If human life is so precious, why are there so many of the damn things? If there is a god who cares for all, then why are they dying of disease in the streets? You’re lucky boy - your birthright made you that way and the scum below us is a dime a dozen.” _

_ Soon after, he had started taking care of the darker side of his father’s business. Beatings for vengeance, murder to get someone out of the way, anything his father told him to do, he did. Some of it was exciting - a foreman was threatening to bring his father to court, but Evan had shown up one night. When he left, the foreman’s wife could not be consoled and the man himself knew to never cross a Macmillan again. Breaking the woman had been one of the highlights of his violent career - the memory made his heart beat wildly even now. _

_ But the mine. He greeted the men as they all headed into work, into the mine. He laid out a map of the mine thus far and told them they were dynamiting for a deeper channel along the eastmost route. It was a small dynamite, so others could keep working in the westmost channel. He watched them all pile in, one of the foremen with a satchel of dynamite. He moved towards the outside, watching the sun coming over the horizon so slowly. There was an autumn chill nipping at his arms. Behind him, he heard a short explosion and then a violent rumbling beneath the earth. After a few moments, all was still again, peaceful. He turned and went to the planning table, picking up his coffee that was surely beginning to cool. Very faintly, underneath the rubble of the shaft, he could hear muffled screaming. He took a sip of his coffee and made a face. Cold coffee was so annoying. _

In the distance, he could see the faint burning in the air. He dropped from the roof and started towards it. As he got closer, the portal of spikes and spines glowed brighter. He stepped through and reappeared in shelter woods. It must be time to play again.

_ That stupid bitch, thinking she could reprimand him. His own mother had never dared and this wretch was attempting to - he would teach her her place. Only the enhanced reflexes of the fog kept the whirling stick from striking his face. The other woman, one with no softness to her that was almost as tall as he was. He could teach her too - he could teach them all and then still make the little witch and brat by the fire cook. A hand stopped him and the only other man present, the dark-skinned Philip, dared to try and calm him. He sat down only because of the promise of food, but he seethed. His rage bubbled under his skin, but he would wait. In the next trial, he could lead to their downfall - make them suffer a bit. _

_ In his mind, the words drifted, spiraled. Make them suffer… make them suffer. Didn’t he want to make them suffer… eternally? At his own hands? Abruptly the image of blood on his hands, the redheaded woman begging for her life, the little witch dead at his feet, her twin slumped near her with haunted eyes. The images were blissful. He wanted nothing more and when the little witch started screaming, he knew his time had come. _

_ In the darkness, the entity finally spoke to him. Not in words, but in images, in promises, in power. For forever, he could torture them, destroy them, for forever. The reward was the price - the entity only wanted to see their suffering. He could do that - he wanted to, more than anything. _

_ The transformation was painful, but the pain fueled his desires to destroy, to reclaim his birthright at the top of the food chain. _

The redhead was the first on the hook again. She always was, basically stepping in front of every strike to protect the others. It must make her feel worth something, to be everyone else’s savior, when they were all trapped in this place. Saving meant nothing here - but she was a woman, and they tended to be foolish.

He trapped near the hook and stalked away. He enjoyed when they were saved - the twinkle of hope filled him with excitement. His ability to speak was gone - it had left after his first day of freedom, but he didn’t need to speak to the prey to cause them fear.

He saw the disfigured boy out of the corner of his eye and turned to give chase.

\---

Sally woke by the campfire, a gentle hand brushing along the side of her face. Her head was in Rin’s lap, but the hand was not hers. The redhead’s eyes moved to find Lisa sitting beside her, petting her and half-humming a strange tune. The young girl smiled down at her and Sally pushed herself up. Around the fire, she saw Lisa, Anna, Rin, Tommy, Philip - no Evan. It had all been real. She lowered her eyes to the ground, almost in defeat. The first to fall was a heavy blow.

“Good riddance,” Rin said softly, slowly moving closer to the fire. There was something cooking on it, some small creature. The sharpness of her words were softened by Lisa’s following, “He was evil, Sally. I could see it… I knew he was.”

She nodded tiredly. “You’re right, Lisa. He was evil - but seeing what he was changed into…” Her voice trailed off, remembering that she couldn’t let the depths of despair out in front of the children. She was their rock - she had to be strong for them, lest they all fall.

A hand touched her shoulder and she looked up to see Philip. “A word…?” He hesitated, as if his actions were unfamiliar to him. “Alone.”

She couldn’t keep her confusion off of her face, but she followed him a little ways from the campfire and the tall thin man hesitated in the edge of the gloom. “You saved me, in there…” he began, haltingly, his eyes tracing the shadows in the distance. “Before, saving was never an option - when one was caught, they were taken for… for the trial. But as the rules of the trials changed, you did as well, so quickly.” There was the weight of a pondering mind weaving through the sentences. “What I mean to give you is gratitude, my appreciation, for giving your suffering for me to walk away. This is the first trial that we have ever been allowed to walk away and because of your actions, three of us were allowed to. Your sacrifice was… so meaningful.”

Sally was more than a little taken back by his words. He had been quiet as long as she’d known him, just another victim in the mist, and hearing him speak this much put her out of her comfort zone. She could read in his face, though, that he had chosen to do this despite his nature and that he needed to speak. So she just nodded and offered a smile, “It was… something I had to do. I’m going to take care of us, all of us.” For once, a steel came into her blue eyes, a determination filled features that were usually soft. Philip was struck by it for a moment, before the only question he could think of came unbidden into the air, “But who will take care of you?”

She had no time to process before the darkness took her again.

\---

The trial was going so poorly. One generator done, Lisa had been hung once, Tommy once, and even Anna had been caught. Sally herself been hung twice already and again she was running from Evan, his bloodthirsty eyes that seemed to darken every time he saw her. There was a building rage towards her in his eyes and she feared what would happen when that rage reached its peak.

All at once, three generators roared to life around the arena. Sally’s heart skipped a beat, filling with pride for her precious ones. Then she realized that the racing heartbeat was gone. She turned and found Evan had abandoned her or lost her. She stopped and turned, looking around her in confusion. He had never abandoned her trail before.

In the distance, she heard a cry of surprise. Tommy. The voice was Tommy’s. A moment later, she heard him scream as he was hooked. Evan must have caught him. She started making her way over to the boy. She got close enough that she could hear his disoriented gurgles of fear, his illogical shouts, when she heard another cry near her. Lisa had been trying to save him too and Evan had caught her. Sally had two seconds to watch her get downed before the final generator activated the doors. As he hauled her up, Anna stood in his way, her eyes unwavering. He struck her and she screamed, but it was more wrath than pain.

 

“Anna, door!” Sally called and the tiger was off. Evan hadn’t seemed to hear them. Lisa was hooked near Tommy, near the door. They were in an almost unredeemable situation. The trapper hooked Lisa and then turned heel to go check on Tommy, instead of checking on the door. Sally took the opportunity to go for Lisa, knowing that the unhooking could disorient Evan enough that she could go for Tommy just in time.

Just as she unhooked Lisa, she started hearing the heartbeat again. The large figure was charging towards them, death in his dark eyes. Those eyes were focused on Lisa, not Sally. He was going for her, the sure down, the sure sacrifice. Sally started running, keeping her body between the trapper’s and Lisa. When he struck her the first time in his irritation, she knew then there was no saving Tommy.

Behind her, she heard, “Mmmmmmmfffffaaaa!” Tommy’s voice was so desperate, so afraid, with the spikes closing in on his neck. His body in agony, he called again, “Maaaaaffff! MAAAFFF!”

Sally almost turned back. She paused long enough to meet Tommy’s eyes, to see the utter fear and confusion, the betrayal in them. He called one last time, enough begging in his voice to bring tears to her eyes, “MAAAAAAM!”

She didn’t recognize what he was saying until she turned and ran past the threshold. As she crossed the point of no return, the final echoing cry resounded in her soul.

“ _ MAM!” _

_ Mom! _

The arena faded into the forest.


	3. Even

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original notes for this chapter were: (( This chapter gets INCREDIBLY dark. Considering the video game it's based off of, this fic had to get dark at some time, and now is apparently that time. This chapter includes graphic violence and also cannibalism.  
> DalekRaptor, dearie, I'm sorry about Tommy. His history is incredibly awful and unfair, and I was trying to do him (the good, sweet, solid him) justice before it all went bad. Thank you for the comment, though - that you reacted to my work means the world to me.))
> 
> Updated notes: Rin was incorporated just a little again, some minor tweaks were implemented. Comment, pls. <3 Remember, believe.

Even now, the boy didn’t quite understand what was happening to him.

Had he lived a different life, Tommy would have been completely able to understand the events that transpired - but then he wouldn’t have fallen. He could have been a bright boy had he been given half a chance - he had the makings of a genius, but his appearance at birth had damned him for eternity.

_ He could hear them, passing the one hole in the wall. Everything around him appeared to be wall and only when they chose to, the beautiful people would come in. The wall would move and for a brief heartbeat he would see light. He lived for those moments - but no, they kept going. It was not time yet. _

_ He had no sense of the time that passed, but he knew it dragged on endlessly. There was no beginning or end for him, just the brief periods of light and the endless dark. The light would fuel him until the next one but that was ceasing to be enough. He wanted to see what was out there, he wanted to see where the light came from. It came from somewhere - everything came from somewhere, didn’t it? It was one of the few truths he had gathered on his own. _

_ Others were observable. Everything changed - those that came in gathered lines on their hands, their faces. He had gotten larger - though he’d used a dull rock to mark the wall to prove it to himself. He had stopped growing taller for many lights now, though. He had continued horizontally but only a bit. _

_ Pain was constant. He knew it in the ache of his limbs, the sharp stabbing in his middle, in his chest as the light faded each time. Slowly the pain was changing though - it was becoming a roaring in his head, a heat in his chest. Each time the light went away, the roar grew louder. _

_ The light brightened! He stood dazed, staring into it with rapture, and a shadow crossed over it. The smaller man, the one who brought food, stepped in. His face always twisted when he entered, though the boy could not recognize the expression (nor could he have articulated it if he had). The plate came down on the table, bolted in the corner, and the man started back towards the light. _

_ “Ra.” The visitor jumped at the sound, the command in it, and the boy noticed his eyes had grown wider, his shoulders closer together. The response encouraged him, so the boy moved closer. He repeated his sound, louder, “RA.” _

_ The man bolted for the light and he followed. In his hand was an item he’d made from string, from old bones, from a toy train. He brought the item down on that face, the twisted and the wide eyes. Red water came from the face and then the man was on the ground. _

_ The prisoner studied the fallen man for a long moment, trying to understand why he didn’t get up. However, the wonder faded when he remembered the light. Finally, for the first time, he stepped into it. _

_ \--- _

_ They kept trying to take the light away! All of the people, all of their twisting faces, kept trying to urge him back to the dark. But no. He was finished with the darkness, he had claimed the light. It was his and nothing could stop him. _

_ The red water seemed to be in everyone, even him. He knew he contained water - sometimes the visitors had brought it out - but he had never seen how bright it was in the light. There was red water everywhere now, flowing out of everyone who had tried to urge him back. None of them were moving, making sounds. It didn’t bother him though - the sounds had always taunted him with mystery anyway. _

_ The light was a wonderful place, a room so much bigger than the dark. Some of the room was separated off by more walls, but he figured them all out. There were so many new items in the light and the roaring in his head was gone, replaced by… peace. Silence. There was nothing but the beautiful silence, the sweet air, and the light. _

The darkness communicated to him - he had not realized the darkness had thoughts, had reasoning before, but here he had figured it out. This darkness spoke to him in images, in ideas.

As he saw the the red-haired woman leave, the one that had been all that mattered to him, his world had shattered. When he was very small, before his life was complete darkness, he remembered another red-haired woman, one that some of the visitors would whisper would come to see him. Mom, they’d repeated. He hadn’t liked her - the look in her eyes that seemed fire. When his life was changed, she had never come again.

This one, though, this woman, she was different. She pulled him closer to the light. She gave him food when the pain started, she protected him, and she touched him. None of the visitors had ever tried to touch him - they had avoided it - but this woman, this Mom, she had touched him willingly. Her face never twisted, except in that one way that made him feel like his chest was light. She would hold his hand, pat his back, pet his head. She never recoiled or ran from him. She was Mom, but he never found a way to tell her. Not until it was too late.

He screamed for her to come get him, to not leave him with the bad man and the living dark, but she looked at him and then she left him. The darkness ate him and then it told him the truth. She had left him here to take the light away from him - she was just like all the others. She would recoil and run now. The boy, Tommy being the only word that had ever described him positively, believed the dark, because it made sense. And he hated it. The roaring was in his head again, his chest was on fire. She had tried to take away the light - they all had, and they would have to be taken to the dark to make up for it.

He remembered this place - the tall corn had taken him so long to wander through. He was back to his first place, from so long ago, but it was dark. He hated it too. The dark told him what to do, though, and he knew he was being given the way to take the light from them. He just had to find them.

\---

Sally woke to the campfire and jolted upright. The others were stirring, all slowly waking from the trial, and only her adrenaline surged the process along for her. She counted heads, faces, and one was missing. The boy, the sweet boy, the suffering boy - the one she had abandoned. He was gone. She shoved herself into standing, feeling herself sway at too much too fast, but it didn’t matter.

The others only noticed her tearing off into the woods. They didn’t understand why until they heard her ragged voice calling for Tommy. In only a few minutes, they were all looking around for him, their voices mingling with hers in the dark. But no one answered them and soon they were all back at the campfire.

Sally collapsed on a log, blue eyes blank on the flames. She knew this was her doing - in saving Lisa, she had chosen to leave the boy with Evan. She’d chosen and he’d had to pay for it. The weight of what she’d done felt like it was pushing her into the ground and she realized she was slowly sliding down only when an arm pulled her upright.

Philip had his arm around her shoulders, keeping her from sinking completely. Her expression was telling him a great deal - she blamed herself somehow - but he had not participated in this trial. He had seen only the campfire, a brief darkness, then woken with them. He gathered that something had happened, something that had caused their disfigured boy to vanish.

She leaned into his side, finding a hollow comfort in the contact. She expected the emptiness in her chest to flow out through her eyes - it would be relieving to cry, but nothing came.

“The creature has likely consumed him,” Anna’s voice, for once, was gentle, as if she realized the older woman couldn’t take too harsh of a blow. The redhead flinched anyway and Philip’s arm tightened reflexively, trying to somehow protect her from the pain. Logically he knew it wouldn’t work, but he hated feeling helpless.

“He… didn’t deserve that…” Sally finally said, her voice quavering.

There was quiet agreement around the circle and then despair looped them as well. After hours, it felt like, Lisa broke the the silence with a tortured sob. She crumbled, her face in her hands and her shoulders shaking. Rin’s face broke with concern, vibrant worry filling the stone. She hit her knees too, her arms around the fallen one. While the sight was distressing, it gave Sally something to focus on. She pulled away from Philip and was beside the girls in an instant, hushing and adding her arms to the embrace.

“I-it sh-should-d’ve b-been meee…” the guilt-ridden girl wailed, all the weight of her sorrow pouring into the air. “You ssaved  _ me  _ , n-not him and - and - and it’s MY fault.” The end of the admission was punctuated with her striking her own frail chest. The scarred girl’s arms tightened, but the words  _ no, never _ were just mere breaths.

“No, no, honey,” Sally’s voice easily took on soothing tones, a sound that was completely sure, that would never lie. “It isn’t your fault. Evan was too close - that monster, he… it’s his fault. No one else’s. We’re just lucky we could get you - you’re lucky, love.”

It was easy for Lisa to take the words and wrap them around her wounded heart. The muscle was flayed with remorse, but the delicate murmuring was a bandage and a numbing agent all in one. Lisa shook and sobbed and suffered, but at the end, her soul felt absolved of this sin. Poor circumstances, bad luck. It was just a tragedy - it was Evan’s fault. Evan, their new tormentor, the new face of evil. The bad man.

After the tears, the girl fell asleep, her head in Rin’s lap. The Japanese girl’s hand kept stroking the dark face, soothing away any remaining dregs of unpleasantness. Sally moved away from them, leaving them beside the fire, curled up together. Lisa’s thin face was innocent, angelic and for the only time Sally had ever seen it, at peace. That alone gave her a little comfort, but her own constricting guilt was winding round and round her chest, cutting off her air.

“You may go - a moment. The silence. It will help you. I will guard them.” Anna’s voice was formal, but what she offered indicated a great deal of thoughtfulness. Sally gave her a grateful look and stood. She moved into the forest, her steps as heavy as her heart. After several yards, enough distance that the campfire was a flicker, she stopped. The weight pulled on her and she leaned against a tree, hand gripping the bark so tightly that the bark was biting back. She slowly slid down until she was kneeling at the base of the tree, her forehead pressed to it, and blood dripping from her hand. At last, tears came for her. At first, there was no sobbing, no shaking, just the slightest tremor to her breathing and the warmth trickling down her face.

A sound made her jump, made her turn her tearful face towards it, and Philip paused only a couple feet away. Murmuring something in a language she didn’t recognize, he stepped forward and knelt beside her. Gentle hands drew her away from the tree and into his arms. “Hush, hush,” he offered, voice no more than a whisper. “In all of this, you too must remember it is not your fault. You must remember that we are all victims here.”

The comfort was enough to break her down. From silent weeping, her crying escalated a wrenching sobbing similar to Lisa’s earlier. When the first sounds echoed on the trees, she hid her face in his shirt, muffling herself. The children couldn’t hear, couldn’t know - she had to be strong for them, always. Her vulnerability could only be her secret - hers and now, his.

When she found she was breathing more easily and that the tears had ceased, she pulled away to thank him, because what he had given her was more valuable than she could possibly express. In the darkness, his face was beginning to blur - everything was blurring and she recognized the familiar horrifying sensation of starting a trial.

\---

She didn’t recognize this place. Cornstalks reached up towards the sky around her - in the distance, she could see a tall white manor house rising above the corn. The paint was worn and patchy, but even now, it was obvious that the place had once been a proud farmstead. Sally turned slowly and almost screamed at the next thing she saw - a towering tree with cows dangling from the branches like macabre Christmas decorations. She swallowed hard to keep herself from vomiting and pried her eyes away.

She made her way through the corn and she thought she heard, very distantly, a chainsaw. Perplexed, she turned her head towards the sound and then a scream followed it. A scream that was half fear, half rage, but still indicated the power in its owner - Anna. It had to be Anna.

Sally was sprinting across the corn, towards the voice. She caught up as the towering figure threw Anna onto a hook. She slunk behind a tree and the being walked just a few inches away from her. She looked up and up the strange being and it wasn’t until she hit his face that she recognized him. Tommy, it was Tommy. His clothes were dirty, his skin was carved and flayed, there were staples in his face, but it was Tommy.

Bile crawled into her throat and she had to swallow hard again. When he was a sufficient distance away, she crept over to the girl on the hook - the dark-haired tiger who was watching her with slitted angry eyes. Anger was Anna’s response to most things - she didn’t despair, she didn’t feel sorrow, she just decided to get even. Sally admired the strength it gave her.

She started healing the girl and was on the last few wraps of gauze when she heard the chainsaw again. The revving went from distant to very close in only a few seconds. Anna darted away and Sally tried to follow suit, but in an instant, the vibrating beast tore through her. She was on the ground instantly, no second swing needed, and she was in so much pain for a second she thought she saw the end of all of this. Then she was back in her own head, her own agonized body.

The creature, because calling him Tommy was beyond her in this state, paced around her. He recognized the woman and was fascinated by the damage his new tool had caused. But even more than that, the roaring in his head was growing louder. “MAM!” He spat, remembering the hook before the darkness, before the freedom. “MAM!”

She could only groan weakly in response. He picked her up and the walk to the hook was littered with his chants of  _ mam! mam!  _ The word tore at her more than hook did.

She dangled for so long with his endless chorus ringing in her ears. She heard two generators roar to life, then another, before he finally left her. It was as the spikes started descending that someone finally came for her. She found herself looking into Lisa’s sweet face as her feet hit the ground. Lisa’s small hands started patching her up when she heard the chainsaw again. They both ran and the crooked chose the slighter prey.

When Sally realized he was chasing the girl, she stopped running away. She ran towards them, shouting, trying to get his attention. His chainsaw came down and she saw the blood fly from Lisa’s back. Even as far as she was, she could see the mess a chainsaw made of a human body. The Crooked stood beside the downed girl, staring down the upright redhead several feet away, and he laughed. The expression on Sally’s face was one he’d only seen on people before he let all their red water out.

He shifted his attention to his catch and his eyes traced the terrible wounds his tool had made. He remembered the long days after everyone was gone and it was only him and the mean four-legged beasts - the ones he’d had to chase down. When he’d run out of food in the house, he’d started eating the beasts. It was different than eating the food before - nothing he’d eaten before had been covered in red water - but the hunger hadn’t particularly cared.

Sally stood dumbfounded as he leaned down and grabbed at the mauling the chainsaw had made. He jerked up and Lisa released a high, piteous scream as a piece of her flesh was viciously removed. The nurse could only stay frozen as he ate it - not a single care in the world.

Something about it had broken Lisa and she was somehow shoving herself upright, screaming “Not again, not again, Sally please, not again, SALLY PLEASE NOT AGAIN.” Her body shouldn’t have even been capable of standing, but it was. The Crooked swung his hammer and sent her sprawling again, perplexed by her sudden energy. Her last cry as she hit the ground was softly, “Rin, Rin.” The name floated to Sally through the corn stalks, the broken girl begging for her shadow, her twin, her other half. The one who was not here, who, maybe luckily, would not have to witness this brutality.

 

He grabbed her by the neck, hauled her up and turned to throw her on the hook.

Sally took a step closer and he turned when his victim was secured, still begging for Rin with that edge of frantic desperation. It hinted at belief that enough times repeated would bring the name holder to her. 

 

He didn’t leave the hook, just made certain Sally was watching as he reached for another handful of meat. He could tell it hurt her, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

The final generator came to life and Sally hadn’t even heard the one before it. She was still standing, still watching, unable to do anything. The helplessness was dulling her senses and the shock was drowning out her mind until there was only the painful guilt in her heart and the distant pounding of fear in her head.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling at her. “Sally, there’s nothing we can do.” She realized the voice was Philip’s, but it took her what felt like years. He pulled her towards the door, not quite able to bear looking towards the hook. She tried to stand her ground, jerking against his hold.

“I… I have to save… her…” The words were weak, disoriented. She took her first step towards the hook and Philip saw the Crooked adjust the hammer in his hand. He hated it, but he tightened his grip on Sally.

“You can’t save her.” He said, unable to lessen the blow. “He isn’t going to let her go… and there’s no use losing both of you.”

“I can… I have to…” But he was pulling her forcefully towards the door. She was stumbling, losing her fight, her blue eyes still locked on the scene. “I have to… save her. She’s…”

“She’s dead, Sally.” With that, they had gone around the corner, into the gate. He had to keep leading her over the threshold, but without the object of her focus in view, she was more docile.

The Crooked looked up at the girl on the hook. She was limp now, but still alive. She didn’t make anymore noises, her mantra gone, she wasn’t even crying anymore. She was just hanging there, waiting for the darkness to take her.

He almost smiled. Now they were even.


	4. The Unfair Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the biggest change takes place, and where the story is more or less completely altered by Rin's presence. If you're a returner, you'll know in the original, the next chapter belonged to Herman Carter, but you'll probably be seeing where this is going instead.
> 
> Comment, pls. <3 and remember, believe.

She etched another sigil into the ground, marveling at how adept her hand had become. The long claw, the stretched and broken hand, she remembered how she had shattered it, what felt like lifetimes ago. Jerking at shackles, until her thin and strained hand had come free.

 

The land under her was so familiar. The Pale Rose, rising high above the swampland. There was still some pride to the ship - but these were not lands she’d wandered in as a child. They were mimicry, mockery made by her new slaver. But at least here, she would never be eaten again - she would never be treated as common livestock again. She wrapped her arms around herself, around the thin wilted form she’d been given and felt the faintest wish for a different set of arms to hold her together. She would never look in a mirror - but she was free. She could roam this place, she could rest, finally. And when she rested, there was nothing, there was peace. In between those moments of peace, she was the creature’s plaything. Yet, she knew now, that she had never had any choice at all in the matter. This was the end it had always been coming to - and it would come for them all. She just wanted them to see it. They didn’t have to suffer so needlessly anymore. Rin… the thought made her hesitate, but she pushed forward. Rin didn’t need to suffer so needlessly anymore.

 

_ The elders showed her the runes and she mimicked them perfectly every time. She could feel the protection surrounding the village, the powerful togetherness that made them stronger. She knew that not every village was as close as hers and not all of them knew magic, but she was unaware of the evils that lurked just past their borders. _

 

_ She was gathering catkins and bog water, a satchel bouncing against her side as she moved from place to place. She was a strong girl of sixteen, with a radiant mahogany complexion that brightened even further when she smiled - which was often. Her village was peace and prosperity and she was the image of it. _

 

_ A raindrop struck her shoulder and she looked up, frowning. The sky, blue only moments before, had darkened into a whirling tempestuous storm. The raindrop was followed by torrents of companions and within seconds, her thin dress was plastered to her skin and her satchel was more water than components. She couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of her face and she could tell she was getting hopelessly, miserably lost in the woods she’d played in since she could walk. _

 

_ Her foot lost purchase in the already slick mud and she felt herself fall back. There was a sharp impact against the back of her head and then there was… nothing. She felt faint flickers in the dark, and she saw brief glimpses of glowing eyes, shining teeth. _

 

_ She woke with a groan and tried to reach to rub her head, but she couldn’t move her arms. Her eyes snapped open, adrenaline chasing away the aftereffects of her unwilling sleep. She was in some sort of cellar and her arms were chained to the wall. She shifted around and felt that her feet were free, but that didn’t matter so much with her arms bound so. _

 

_ Abruptly, she noticed the scent of death, heavy and humid in the air. It clogged her nostrils, crawled down her throat, strangling her. She coughed, but it made no difference. Finally, she scrunched up, getting her face as close to her dress as possible. She inhaled the scent of mint - all of her clothes smelled like that because she put them away with sachets of the herb. She breathed in mint and then looked around again. _

 

_ There were others in the dark, but the very sight of them overwhelmed her with pity. They looked like they had been carved down to their bones, their flesh cut away, and she only noticed two still even moving. One of them was a pale man with blonde hair (at least, she guessed it was blonde, but she could barely tell through the blood matting the strands down against his face) and the other was a woman about her mother’s age. The woman was faintly breathing, but Lisa had seen death before. The woman was about to meet the Maker, likely before sunup. _

 

_ She didn’t know how long she sat there watching the other two before she heard a door creak open. She saw edges of light and then a large bulky man clambered down the stairs. He moved over to the woman and Lisa could barely hold her scream when he started carving flesh from her. He piled it all in a pan he’d brought and when he stepped back, he eyed the woman. She was dead now, definitely dead, and he shook his head with a low whistle. “Damn shame… thought we coulda got ‘nother coupla days out her.” He turned to ramble back up the stairs, but paused, catching sight of Lisa. “Don’tchu worry lil missy,  I’ll be comin’ for you shortly. Gotta finish the older stuff first.” With that chilling parting shot, he returned up the stairs. _

 

_ Lisa felt dismal, but in her heart a hope chanted. Her village would be looking for her - the elders wouldn’t abandon her. They would find this horrible place and stop these people. She closed her eyes and leaned back, knowing she just had to wait. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ They had never come for her. She had watched the blonde man get carved up and he died too, then they had turned to her. The first couple cuts had been full of agony but her body had adjusted. It didn’t hurt as much now, but her awareness was so… limited. She faded in and out of the dark, aware of her pained husk one second and floating in a dreamland where she was home again the next. _

 

_ She finally woke for the first time in a long time, her mind clear. She knew now no one was coming for her, and she was going to die here. It was so… so unfair. She’d never done anything wrong - she was in training to be a shaman like those before her. She had had an entire life before her - a small one, perhaps, but a bright one. It was so unfair that these people had snatched it from her. She started writhing, pulling strength from her last reserves, and she felt her hand come the tiniest bit free. She could feel that if she pulled harder, she could free herself. So she did. She heard the awful cracking, felt the terrible breaking, and then her hand was free. She stared down at the mangled thing in her lap with a hollow sense of pride. It was brief, a moment lost in time. She got her other hand free with less damage and felt the edges of her vision being eaten away. She felt the unconsciousness this time would be it - in her bones, she knew it was her time. She reached to draw one of her charms again, etching it into the ground, and her blood filled it. Something about the charm, her despair, the blood - she heard it speak to her. The old magic the elders had always spoke of - she felt it breathe through her mind in half-whispered promises of something darker. Charms were not just for protection. Rarely, they could be used for destruction and in this case, she felt the magic offer her vengeance. _

 

_ Lisa had nothing else. Her life had been ripped from her, her flesh had been consumed as if she were mere cattle. She had been treated as less than human, as if she were a beast. Well, let her show them what a beast truly looked like. _

 

_ The cannibals had never stood a chance, but at the end, the barely animated thing that had been Lisa despaired. She could not return to her village and killing them… it had done nothing to save her. _

 

_ There was nothing left in this world for her, anywhere, so Lisa had turned and left the cannibal shack. _

 

Lisa stared up at the ship, her hull cracked and seamlessly merged with the swamp mud. Near the bow of the ship was a post she didn’t remember being there. She wandered closer, her rattling breathing echoing along the wood. It was blood-stained and engraved near the base, she could see markings that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Then, abruptly, the L-shaped post dropped a hook. She understood before the entity’s will whispered over her, “ _ Hunt… _ ”

 

She felt a hesitation in what was left of her soul, that stoic face swimming to the surface of her mind, but the entity’s power drowned it. She would hunt - she would kill them. They needed to learn that there was no escape.

 

\--

 

Philip had to lead her back to the campfire, supporting her and still somewhat dragging her. At the campfire, there was a new face sitting beside it, a tall, dark man with laughing brown eyes. However, it felt as if whatever amused him was something only he could laugh at. Rin was sitting as far away from him as she could be while still being in the light. Concern glimmered in the depths of her eyes when Lisa delayed to walk out, but sometimes they staggered out alone, in twos, while the others still thrashed in the arena.

 

He stood as they approached, sending a cursory glance over Sally. “Shock,” he said, the word seeming to have more depth than just someone’s mental status. Philip shifted to put himself between her and the stranger, wondering if he was just a manifestation of fog or if he was a new victim. He appeared wholly human, except for the fact he looked so calm. Happy even.

 

“She’s in shock. She needs to be near the fire.” The man repeated, gesturing them towards the campfire. Philip shifted a little past him and helped her settle down. He kept a watchful eye on the newcomer. Anna had another stick in her hand, though this one was much larger, unlikely to be used as a projectile. It was comforting that the darkhaired girl was ready too. 

 

The stranger settled himself on a log and peered at the four eagerly, searching them. His gaze was focused and invasive, the laughter in his eyes fading into something coldly analytical. Philip shuddered. He didn’t want anyone to be alone with this man and he felt a passing sickness that Rin had been at all.

 

“Oh, how rude of me. Herman. Herman Carter.” He hopped up and offered a hand to Philip, who gave him nothing but skepticism back. Carter stood there for several long moments, hand extended, before he decided he had waited enough. “As you like,” his tone was decidedly less friendly and he returned to his log. “So, what is the nature of this place? I did a little walking around before you all came out of the mist, especially after the Asian refused to talk to me, but it seems like no matter how far one walks, they always come back here. It’s peculiar really.” He didn’t sound bothered by the cage they were locked into. He seemed interested in it, as if it were an experiment he could pick apart.

 

“It is our prison,” Anna finally said, though her voice contained a clear anger. She didn’t like this new man, especially not with the scene they had just walked away from so fresh in her mind. She didn’t  _ need  _ a stranger in their midst right now - not when they were dropping like flies under the evil creature’s games.

 

“Prison, you say. How… interesting. Tell me why you believe it is a prison.” His eyes were inquisitive, aiming for friendly, but Anna was having none of it.

 

“I do not wish to speak with you.”

 

His eyes widened just a little, then he grinned oddly broadly. “As you like,” he repeated, finally turning his eyes to Sally, the only one who hadn’t rebuked him as of yet. “Coming out of it yet, miss?”

 

She had been watching him, but hadn’t quite registered him until he spoke to her. Her blue eyes grazed over the stranger and then turned to the fire. “I’m… fine.” She managed, feeling the fog that filled her head slowly clearing. She couldn’t pull herself out of it enough to reach the hint of adrenaline the other two were feeling, but her mind gathered itself enough that she was able to feel more herself. Putting the image of Tommy eating Lisa as far back as she could, she straightened herself. “How did you get here?” Much clearer blue eyes turned to Carter.

 

“Oh, I can’t say I rightly know. I woke up here - though I can’t quite remember going to sleep. In fact… recent memory is very blurred, so I imagine I was likely drugged. I have enemies, of course, so it makes sense.” He shrugged, “But I also have allies. I won’t be here long.”

 

He didn’t understand, then. Sally traced designs in the flames with her gaze, unable to gather the will to explain the truth to him. He would learn soon enough. The creature’s hunger was growing and it was becoming vastly apparent that before now, it had just been toying with them.

 

After a few more long moments, Rin straightened, “Where is Lisa?” She asked, a fear growing clear in her tone. Philip shook his head, words of denial coming to his lips.

“She is just taking more time.” He prayed it was true, but in his heart, he knew it wasn’t. 

 

\---

  
  


It felt like almost a day passed in silence. The three were dealing with what they’d seen, what they knew, and Rin had begun frantically pacing around the campfire. Carter was observing all of them like lab rats. He found it amusing to read the emotions flowing over their faces, to see the effect of intense emotional trauma. He wished for a notebook to scrawl down his notes in - but his mind was just as well.

 

His attentions unnerved Anna, who offered to go hunting to escape his ever-present gaze. Rin went after her, more likely to be looking for Lisa. Sally watched them disappear into the woods, a motherly anxiety filling her heart. But she couldn’t protect them any more here than she could in the trial - and here had pretended to be safer for so long she couldn’t imagine it changing now.

 

Her eyes switched to Philip, who hadn’t left her side since they walked out of the trial. He didn’t trust the newcomer any more than she did, and she felt a little more secure with him near her. If only they’d met in another way, another life… But thoughts like that were foolish.

 

Anna returned with two birds, different ones than the shrieking crows in the trials. There was just a touch of annoyance to her face, likely caused by the disturbing echoes in the darkness as Rin called for Lisa. Sally gave a passing thought to how the girl knew how to hunt effectively, but she was burned out on strange things. She moved to the fire to cook and tried very hard not to think of the thinner hands that used to work alongside hers. Rin tried to help, but the movements were too familiar and also, all at once, too different. She sat back and watched.

 

Carter seemed hesitant to eat what he considered barbaric fare, but he reasoned it was likely all they had access to. He settled on the ground leaning on his log afterwards, returning to his study.

 

Sally had remained close to the fire, her knees drawn up to her chest. Philip moved a little closer, a hand touching her shoulder in an offer of comfort. She leaned into it unconsciously, but noticed a very slight raising of her mood. A minor miracle, really.

 

Then the flicker of the fire began dimming out. Sally couldn’t feel the rush of fear that usually accompanied starting a trial, instead just quietly waiting for the dark to consume her.

 

\---

 

Another new arena. Sally woke to Anna standing only a few feet away from her. The tiger-masked girl offered her a nod and started moving into the gloom. There was an unfamiliar squelching beneath their feet and the mud clung to them. “A new place… a new person.” Anna’s voice was soft, almost mournful. She had a feeling she knew which spectre was returning to haunt them.

 

They found a generator and their hands moved in unison to get it running. Between them, the machine’s progress accelerated and they were unbothered until it activated. That was… unusual.

 

Sally started towards the boat in the distance and one of her steps created an explosion of mud. She screamed, reeling back, as the mud-creature glared her down. It wasn’t moving or rather… she. She wasn’t moving. Sally recognized the faint scraps of dress on the dirty body, the hair twisted into dreadlocks on her head, out of her face.

 

The mud fell back to the earth and Sally stayed mesmerized one second longer. Lisa had fallen - but she’d known that. She hadn’t understood the phantasm, so she kept moving, towards the boat.

 

She started hearing a resounding heartbeat and she crouched into a crevice between broken planks and the boat’s hull. She heard what sounded like a thousand of those damned birds rising into the sky. The heartbeat got louder and then she came around the corner, the young girl turned fearsome hag.

She immediately saw the crouched woman and stopped, her breathing rattling out through her sharp teeth. “I would run… Sally.”

 

That was enough encouragement and the redhead took off. She heard the breathing behind her, the crackling gasps that came from the new being, and then she felt something strike her back - dry like wood, cutting like claws. She cried out and rushed away, glancing back only a second to see the hag sprinkle the blood into her own mouth.

 

She couldn’t tell if she had gotten some skill or if Lisa was going easy on her, but two more generators finished before the hag caught her again. Sally went sprawling into the mud, groaning softly when she was still.

 

Lisa’s feet appeared by her face and the wretched being crouched down. “This is where I died, you know. Well, not exactly here… but a place, in the real world, near the real boat. We played in it as children… though we never knew what happened to the people on it.” She traced her smaller hand, the one that was close to normal, down the woman’s face. “You have to remember where you died, Sally. But for now, you can die here.”

 

Lisa picked her up, imbued with some sort of supernatural strength, and got her to a hook. Sally screamed, but the physical pain was almost a relief. It brought her out of the daze seeing Lisa’s new form had caused. She could sense vaguely where everyone was. Rin was in the distance, working on a generator, as of yet unbothered, unknowing. Philip was on his own and Anna was breaking one of the hooks.

 

She saw both Philip and Anna begin making their way towards her. She noticed about the same time the sigils around her feet, the markings in the mud. Anna reached her first and she jumped in surprise when the sigil activated, bringing up another phantasm of Lisa. This one, however, burst into motion. Anna turned to run and the hag gave chase.

 

Philip kept his gradual approach, getting closer the farther Anna took the killer. As he was about to reach for Sally to lift her from the hook, another phantasm trap was tripped. He lurched forward, intending to save her anyway, and the hag grabbed him. She ripped him cruelly from her, jerking him onto her shoulder and carrying him to a different hook.

 

She tossed him up, and left him there. 

  
Anna was slinking around the edge, too unnerved to approach the two with such unnatural things occurring. Until she understood the traps better, she would not go for them. A little time, a little time. 

 

Rin, however, had not triggered a trap yet. She moved towards her hanging comrades, her only friends in this place, and she set off one of the horrid traps just between the two. 

 

She stared into the phantasm’s face, some part of her mind trying to protect her, to not let her see. But recognition came all the same. “L-Lisa,” her voice trembled, and the phantasm fell into the earth. In the place of that despair came a rage. 

 

“You  _ lied, _ ” her voice echoed against the mud as she turned to the dangling Philip, who she could have easily saved now. But her wrath would not allow it. “You told me she was taking longer, you… you allowed me to believe that she would  _ come back _ . Deceiver, traitor!” Her usual calm words riddled with a boiling bile. “Liar, liar, and you- !” She spun, as if to turn her onyx-eyed rage on the dangling redhead, but she stopped halfway, eyes on the mangled hag that had come up unnoticed. 

 

“Lisa,” she said, feeling her heart breaking. The hag moved closer but made no move to strike. “Lisa, what… what have they done to you… if only I could have… if only it had been…” the statements flowed unfinished, but all knew the words that would have ended them. If she had been there, if she had protected her, if only it had been… her, instead.

 

“Rin,” the maw moved and that voice solidified that it was  _ her  _ Lisa. The one she had always protected first in the trials, the one she had tended to and guarded with such care. The others had failed her, failed… them. They must have. 

 

“Rin,” Lisa said again, moving forward, reaching for that pale face with her broken, mangled hand. Touch between them had been comfort, communication, constant, since only days after they got here. The two girls had recognized a similar suffering in each other, and deeper, their spirits had recognized a similar need for revenge. It had linked them. Rin became Lisa’s shadow, following her, protecting her, and Lisa had done the same. Touch was not a thought between them, but instinct.

 

And instinct failed Rin now. The malformed hand did not register as belonging to Lisa at first and she wasn’t able to resist the smallest twitch back. Lisa noticed immediately and the tenderness that had begun filling the dark muddy eyes evaporated, replaced by a dark purpose. 

 

“Rin, you have to learn.” The words were abrupt, cruel, and the slash came out of no-where, sending the scarred girl sprawling. “Rin, Rin… you have to learn, there’s nothing else for us. This is all there is, we have no escape. You have to learn, Rin, be consumed, or suffer endlessly.” 

 

The two helpless viewers watched the hag throw herself onto the prone girl, her maw ripping into the pale flesh of her throat. Lisa tore Rin’s throat out, her wretched claw ripping Rin’s liver out at the same time. 

 

Rin went limp, completely, as the hag stumbled away, shoving the liver into her face. A single tear fell from the faded dark eyes, blank in death. 

 

Lisa turned to the two hooked victims, blood covering her, dripping from her chin. “You won’t be able to save her, you know,” She said, to Philip, a new and powerful bitterness in her tone. Hearing Lisa’s voice out of that maw was disorienting to him, but he couldn’t not hear the words. “There is no saving in this place - and you’re a fool to think otherwise.” 

 

His core was shaken, but he refused to believe her. Out of them all, Sally was strong and as long as he could support her, he could keep her whole. He realized then that was all that was keeping him from the precipice - the redheaded woman currently struggling for her life against the entity’s spikes.    
  


He could see her in the distance and he watched her as he dangled helplessly, waiting for the entity’s spikes to descend around his own form. He noticed the second the entity overcome her and it was then he ceased his own struggling. He fell, careening into the dark and the half-remembered cruelties of his former life.


	5. The Sunrise That Never Came

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on this - Rin's chapter was really hard to write for some reason. I should have the doctor's chapter up soon.

The swirls of darkness tried to bring back memories of shattered glass and deep severance, but they stayed foggy, distant. There was a separation between her and the torment of the dark; nothing seemed capable of reaching her. 

 

In the void, a bright light started growing and Rin became aware enough of herself to glance down. On her hand, the back of her hand where one of the deepest silver scars ran clean through, there was a triangle bisected with a half-circle. There was no injury beneath the glowing light, just the sigil on the skin, glowing a faint yellow. Like… primrose blossoms. Rin frowned, because none of the primroses she had ever known were yellow, but then the darkness faded away. 

 

_ “Tell me what your favorite food was,” Lisa’s voice was a hush as she held Rin’s hand, quietly tracing nonsensical shapes on the back. At least, Rin had believed them nonsensical.  _

_ “Botamochi,” the girl answered after a long moment. Deep honey eyes flicked up to her face and Rin read the confusion in them. She smiled a little. “They were… balls, made of rice and bean paste. Sweet and very tasty.” _ _  
_ _ “Sweet… beans? Paste?” Lisa inquired, not judgingly, just perplexed. This earned the softest chuckle from her friend.  _

_ “Yes, beans can be sweet. Bean paste is useful in a lot of dishes - I favor the snacks, though.”  _

_ The little wraith girl nodded, “Rice is good, my Mama, she made red beans and rice. That was one of my favorite foods.”  _

_ “Tell me about it,” Rin couldn’t remember ever doing this with someone, just quietly trading favorites and secrets. There was a great deal of freedom to the exchange, but their situation did not frame it well. The endless trials, the confusion, being ripped from their lives… The exchanges made their suffering, their distress, lighten temporarily.  _

_ “She’d season it with herbs from the swamp, with pork. Last us a few days and I was the only one who never got tired of it. Salty and a little spicy.” She managed a small smile on her frail face.  _

_ “I’m glad you liked it so much.” _ _  
_ _ “I miss my Mama,” Lisa added, just a little softer.  _

_ Rin sighed in sympathy, and drew the small girl closer. “I do too.”  _

 

The sigil darkened to a sickly gold and red, flaring in the darkness. Rin whimpered as the sigil seemed to burn away, flecks floating into the dark. 

 

In the distance, the shades of blood seemed to deepen, reflecting morbid light. 

 

A light appeared beside her face and at the top of her shoulder, the same triangle with the half-circle glimmered in pale yellow. The dark was replaced by the campfire again. 

 

_ Rin had always been relatively tall, at least in comparison to her peers, but she’d always been thin. Lisa had her beat, though: the mahogany girl was not only barely five feet, if that, but also her ribs could be easily counted through the thin cotton dress she wore. In the Japanese girl’s lap, she looked like a doll.  _

 

_ Sally and Anna were tending to wounds remaining from the most recent trial against Evan, the beast. Lisa was huddled in Rin’s lap, finally calmed again after the brutality they’d faced. Her thin fingers were tracing a shape on Rin’s bare shoulder. She’d given up parts of her clothing to wrap her up with, leaving one of her shoulders free. The clothes would return the next trial. Everything was restored at the beginning of a trial, but for some reason, for Lisa it was different. Injuries seemed to linger on her already torn skin, hesitating to heal.  _

 

_ When the bandaging was complete, Anna stood and stalked off in her usual way, intending to hunt more than likely. Sally returned to her own place by the fire. Lisa didn’t move.  _

 

_ “Tell me, are you summer or winter?” Lisa asked softly, the faintest trembles still in her voice.  _

_ “I like spring, the flowers blooming. Japan is known for cherry blossoms,” Rin answered, used to her strange questions.  _

_ “Oh… hm, I like fall, the leaves - pretty shades of red and orange, like solid fire in the trees,” Lisa hummed a short tune and when she spoke again, her voice was finally steady, “My Mama would take me out gathering, some of the leaves were good for protection.”  _

_ Rin nodded, and for a brief moment, leaned her head onto the top of the other girl’s. The dreads were rough against her cheek, but not unpleasant. They were Lisa, and that was enough for her.  _

  
  


Again, the sigil burned away in the dark, ripping a short cry from the girl. In the distance, shattering glass echoed closer, louder, and she thought she felt some of her wounds tear open in the dim. 

 

The light seemed to bloom from behind her eyes and she couldn't see it, but she knew the symbol was repeated on her forehead. She felt blinded, but somehow also incredibly safe. The sigil seemed to ward away the dark, loosen its hold on her. 

 

_ “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The phrasing was so soft, so childlike, but it roused Rin a little from the daze she was in. She was kneeling while Lisa bandaged her in a trial, her wounds fading in the dim beside a wall.  _

_ “A teacher, I want to teach children, young ones. Elementary.”  _

_ Lisa laughed so softly, barely audible. The quiet sound was at odds with their surroundings, a shock of joy among despair.  _

_ “The elders had me chase children most days - the older girls are supposed to. I don't think I could base my life on children. I wanted to be a… nurse, like my Grandmam. I want to make people well.” The past tense caught up with her and she faltered.  _

_ “You would be good at that,” Rin offered, trying to chase the distress from her face. She went to stand and Lisa stilled her momentarily. _

_ Her dark finger brushed over Rin’s forehead and then she kissed where she had brushed. “You will make a wonderful teacher.”  _

 

She screamed when the light was burned away, trying to swat at the pain with limbs that did not respond to her. Instead they felt the pain of severance, of steel through bone. She shook her head, murmuring and pleading denial. 

 

Warmth filled her chest and she opened her eyes, her gaze falling to the delicate halo of light emitting from the symbol just above her heart. Around the symbol, her skin was still soft and bright, but she could see further, the tinge of blue. 

 

The light from her chest expanded, and brought her to the campfire once more.

  
  


_ Her recent hysterics had left the girl exhausted, so she’d fallen asleep in Rin’s arms for a while while Sally and then Philip were off in the trees. Rin used the time to study her face, to drink in the peace that exuded from her. She wondered at that they had found each other at all, wondered what brought all of them here. She finally allowed herself to wonder.  _

 

_ Lisa’s eyes opened and Rin half-smiled at her. Lisa smiled back, her eyes shifting past her to Anna. Anna was staring into the sky, something wild in her dark eyes behind the tiger mask.  _

 

_ “Purgatory, I think,” Lisa finally said, thoughtful. “This is some kind of purgatory for us… I don’t remember dying, though.”  _

_ “I do not remember dying either,” Rin admitted, nodding. Her eyes traversed over both of them, their scars and wounds. “It must have been something traumatic, though.” _ _  
_ _ Lisa agreed, focusing on the skin just above the bandage-like cloth beneath Rin’s clothing. So little of the stoic girl was free of scars. Lisa reached and started tracing her protection sigil over Rin’s heart, feeling the gentle beat beneath her fingertip. The heartbeat gave her hope.  _

_ “Maybe we aren’t dead, just waiting? Magic could be at work… maybe we needed to learn something,” Lisa offered, struggling to draw a happy thought or memory out of their current topic. _

_ She was just opening her mouth to ask another small, sweet, benign question when Rin spoke, “Maybe we were brought here to find each other?”  _

_ Lisa paused in her tracing, her honey eyes jumping to Rin’s face in surprise. She smiled, a warmth filling her. “Maybe… maybe you’re right. To find each other…”  _

_ Rin hesitated just a moment, but a similar warmth swirled within her. The hope gave her courage and she gave the smaller girl the gentlest, briefest kiss.  _

_ The grin that drew from Lisa was absolutely worth it. Her voice just a low murmur, she said, “I always thought that the primroses in the swamp were the most beautiful thing that I would ever see… but I was wrong.”  _

_ “Primroses?” The implication hadn’t escaped Rin, clear from the slight reddening of her face, but she tried to dodge around it. _

_ “Yes, yes, they were this pretty pale yellow, scattered around tree roots like a rug… Like solid morning sunlight.”  _

_ “Morning sunlight…” _

_ Then the darkness started rolling in, consuming Lisa’s vision. This time she was not so afraid, though. Not as afraid as she should have been.  _

 

In the darkness, the last sigil burned away and Rin screamed. She tasted blood, felt the dreadful injuries that destroyed her form, and heard echoing in the dark, “ _ Rin, you have to learn. _ ” 

 

_ You have to learn. _

 

\--

 

The House of Yamaoka stood in ruins and Rin swayed in the ethereal breeze that tossed the foliage. She scanned the disrepair of her former home in despair and she heard her own soft sobs on the wind, echoing around her like a shroud of sorrow. She stumbled towards the entrance and her shadow on the wall revealed that she, too, was in shambles. Her movements jerky, she tried to come to terms with the shadow. 

  
  


_ Her feet were killing her. Another long shift, customers that didn’t think about another’s plight, but she endured because it was the Yamaoka way. They could work through anything and even though times were growing more difficult, she and her father seemed to face the trial the same way - more work, more determination. She knew he was taking more shifts at his own workplace, coming home later and leaving earlier, to provide for both her and her mother. To keep them above water. Rin only wished she could do more, but she had to work around school and her job had limited hours within which she could take shifts. She was doing the most she could, wishing only that she could do more.  _

 

_ She reached for her helmet but the strap wasn’t attached to her locked bike. She winced a little, realizing she’d forgotten it this morning before class. She tried to recall where she’d left it… the shrine. She’d gone early, just after dawn, to pay respects, pray for a little luck and a bit more strength. Incense had still been burning from her father’s visit, probably two or three hours before her own, and she’d only added one more stick. She’d left her helmet sitting in the shrine, on one of the flowered cushions her mother had let her choose years ago on a store outing. Brighter times.  _

 

_ Rin cringed again when she realized that her mother would have worked her way towards the shrine when the sun was higher, the air was warmer. She was trying to be more careful about her health, but she would have found Rin’s forgotten pink helmet on her own visit. Dreading the lecture she was going to receive, the college student unlocked her bike and tied a little pink box with treats from her work, given by a manager with a sharp eye, to the wiring behind the seat. She swung her leg over, beginning the trek home.  _

 

_ There was a faint sweetness to the air, the blossoms in trees pale in the rising moonlight. The scent, the chill, the light seemed to invigorate her. She had a bit of homework to finish tonight… a sadness filled her when she remembered her schooling was some of what weighed so heavily on her father. She had perfect scores, of course, but that didn’t lessen the financial strain her tuition was causing.  _

 

_ But it was only a couple months, then another year, and she could start working. She could start teaching then and begin earning her own salary. If they could make it that long, on small joys, on the determination and strength their family prided itself on, then life could be bright again. She determined to study harder, try to find more hours to work, and hoped that the beautiful little treats she had with her could be one of those small joys. A singular brightness to get them into tomorrow, and then tomorrow she could find another.  _

_ She intended to check the shrine first when she arrived home, because after her father got home lately, he’d been spending longer and longer hours there as well. She hopped off of her bike as she hit the once-grand entrance of the estate. Just dusty, needed a little more paint, but no one had the time recently. The hope that she carried told her that soon, soon, she and her father would have enough time to do it together.  _

 

_ As she was untying her little box of goodies, a scream echoed from the house. Startled, the box tumbled from her fingertips, forgotten as she raced towards the front door. The scream had been female, in a great deal of pain, and she feared for her mother, for her father. She found nothing in the hallway, so she ran towards the dining room, up the stairs. In her parents’ room, she froze in the doorway, struggling to understand what she saw.  _

 

_ Her mother was in pieces, in a short trail-tangle from her parents’ bed. She looked as if she had been surprised in bed and had attempted to make the doorway, but had been cut down. Rin felt bile rising in her throat and she choked it back. Then the rush of air alerted her to the coming danger and something within her, some instinct passed down,  had enough skill to block it. Rin screamed as steel bit deep into her forearm and she tried to jerk back, but her eyes looked past the blood, past the blade, and into her father’s brown eyes.  _

 

_ She stumbled back into the hallway, blood dripping onto the floor, and she tried to make sense of what was happening. Her father held the sword and there was blood splatter on his glasses, but it couldn’t be him. Not her father, her hard-working father, her determined father, it couldn’t be… _

 

_ “There is no point, dear daughter,” his voice was soft and stone all in one, trying to coax her but unwavering in his resolve. “We are born to die.”  _

 

_ Rin whimpered, taking another hesitant step back. He was hopeless and he’d decided to cut them all down. Instead of fighting, he was giving up.  _

 

_ “The more we wait, the more pain we carry.” With that last statement resounding into the house behind her, he advanced. She turned to run and the blood brought her to her knees. The sharp pain in her knees from hitting the floor slowed her only a second, but the blade sliced into her arm again as she tried to pull herself up. Another slice through her as she made the hallway, another cry tearing from her throat.  _

 

_ The blade jerking out of her made her whirl to face him again. In the blood on his glasses, the red trailing down his clothes, the pool he left as he followed after her - in it all, she saw her mother’s torn form in her mind. Her kind, gentle mother who had held them all together as best she could, through her sickness, through her close brush with death staved away by medicine. She’d survived the illness that ravaged her, only to be destroyed by this man who wasn’t strong enough to fight through despair. He hadn’t been strong enough for her mother, for Rin, for their family name. He was a coward. _

_ Anger spread through the adrenaline like blood into cold water and the wrath drove her forward, charging into her father. She was pleased to feel him stumble, grunting in surprise, and then his fist drove into her severed, bleeding stomach. The pain sent her to the ground, but the anger was urging her to stand once more, so she tried. His hand knotted in her hair and he jerked her against the glass beside them. It cracked and then shattered under the force, sending her crashing to the hallway below.  _

 

_ The pain in her body was overwhelming, the most intense she had ever felt, but somehow her senses were dulling. That anger pushed her a little more, edging her destroyed form across the floor, but she knew she was losing this battle. Her body couldn’t take anymore, her vision was blurring, but her heart still simmered with heat. The unfairness of all of this - her father’s cowardice had struck their family to the ground and he’d even done so with their ancestral blade. The profane nature of what he’d done, the wrath at what he’d destroyed - all their dreams, their hopes, their lives - was still within her decimated body.  _

 

_ The darkness was eating at her vision but there were now whispers in the dark. He couldn’t get away with this - he wouldn’t. She could avenge her mother, herself, her family line, all the darkness wanted was blood and sacrifice.  _

 

_ And Rin was willing to give it.  _

 

_ The head of the Yamaoka family found his only daughter dead in the hallway, but he slashed at her form a few times for good measure. As he went to sever her head, the blade gave way to the stress it had undergone and shattered. He dropped the broken hilt beside the body and sat a few feet away, studying his handiwork. His own demise was coming, he intended to drive the secondary blade into himself in the other room, but just a few moments to catch his breath.  _

 

_ His eyes were closed when he heard the shuffling. He opened his eyes and saw his daughter’s broken pieces rise up, the severed parts aligning to where they should be, but the unholy spaces between making him ill. A gray body held together by rage, wild hair floating with power not of this world.  _

 

_ The crackling of glass filled the air as the body jerked this way and that, but her eyes were on the broken blade. The glass in her right hand crunched loudly and the pieces from the floor shot into her grasp, held together by the same power that assembled her.  _

 

_ And then she turned to him. Her eyes, the dark eyes that had once so dutifully and devotedly watched him, were glowing with white energy. The eyes proved she was dead, yet she stood, mangled and enraged before him.  _

 

_ She took a jerky step towards him and then another, each accompanied by the sound of glass crushed in her skin and the beginnings of an ethereal sobbing that did not show on her enraged face. He stumbled to his feet and began running.  _

_ He crashed through one of the walls in the dining room, and the sobbing was suddenly louder than ever. He spun to see her and there was nothing. An empty room full of broken crying.  _

 

_ She was in front of him and there was nothing to herald her appearance. The broken blade cut into his side, mimicking her own injuries, and he stumbled away from her. He tripped over the table and went sprawling past it.  _

 

_ He looked back as he was scrambling back up and saw the table fly against the wall, though the spirit never touched it. She continued her shambling walk towards him, unhindered by anything, and he ran again.  _

 

_ They tore through the house in this manner, each mistake on his part leading to another slice into his body. He was feeling what he had inflicted tenfold and yet, he was not dying. Her power sent him through a wall to the outside and when he looked up, the bright white moonlight had taken on a dull orange cast. He stood one last time and started stumbling towards the shrine.  _

 

_ There was absolute silence as he reached the steps and he wondered if the holy place provided safety. He tried to straighten and then felt a cold sharpness deep in his chest just as the broken sobbing began again, right in his ear. He looked down, disbelief filling him at the sword emerging from his chest, then a hand shoved him off of it.  _

 

_ He crashed to the ground and watched as his daughter hacked at him ruthlessly, and his last image was her enraged scream before the darkness took him.  _

 

_ He did not see the blade fade away into her injured hand. He did not see the spirit collapse for just a moment beside his body and sob for all that could have been, for all that once was.  _

 

_ His body was very cold when Rin stood again, feeling the darkness that gave her revenge calling to her. Her gaze cast to the moon one last time, the eternal tears on her cheeks cold, and then she answered her new master’s call.  _

 

Rin shuddered in the mockery of her ancestral home, the sky imitating a gentle but sinister sunset. Her aura of sobbing intensified for a moment as she let herself feel sorrow for her lost life, for what she and Lisa had become. But that thought led to another - the others still had  _ yet _ to become. But they would. They would learn. 

 

Like she had. 

 

\--

 

Sally woke in disorientation, shivering under the morbid stars. She glanced around for a head count and confirmed what her heart had already known - no Rin. They were falling so quickly, the tangled beast in the sky was untying them like a loose and oiled knot. She studied those around her, despairing at her chances.

 

But she saw the line of Anna’s jaw, tight in her unconsciousness, the stubbornness to her gave Sally a bit of renewed hope in her heart. Next, Philip’s calm face, the patience that exuded from him, that gave her strength. Only the stranger in their midst, the dark doctor with laughing eyes - eyes that seemed to be laughing at all of them instead of a joke - only he was making her shaky. 

 

And those laughing eyes opened first, but they weren’t laughing this time. There was something cold in them, something… evil. Evil was the only word Sally had for it, and that made her wonder. The rest of them carried tragedy like a backpack bound to them - not just on their shoulders but chained around their midriff, digging into their hearts. They had known pain and sorrow and made it obvious that they were human and victims. This man did not. This man… reminded her of Evan. 

 

She suppressed the shudder than ran down her spine, because he sat up and his eyes fell on her first. The coldness fell under that laughing, charming guise again. “I’ve never been one for oversleeping,” he joked, a lazy stretch showing off the threatening strength in his arms. “This little place is making me lazy.”

 

Sally managed a half-smile in response, but the low growl that came from Anna as she woke made for a good distraction. The dark-eyed girl sat up and looked around, but when her eyes found Sally, the same understanding was present. Then the same stubbornness - they could not fall. 

 

“Seems our little Asian friend is gone,” Carter commented idly. “Young and weak-willed are often related - what are we going to eat today?” 

 

Anna scoffed at him, standing and turning her tiger’s face to the shadows without. “Childish to demand what you cannot provide.” She murmured, her voice rolling through the air over the fire. 

 

As the shadows consumed her, Philip woke and made his way to Sally’s side. A grip of the hand, a tight squeeze - what he could offer of comfort. She accepted it gratefully, offering him a real smile.   
  
Carter stood to his full height, angry eyes focused on the spot in the woods that Anna had disappeared off into. “It’s unnatural for women to hunt,” he scoffed, “It’s unfeminine. She’ll never get a husband that way.” 

 

Sally felt an anger boil up in her throat. When she spoke, the words were acid, “And yet, she would survive out here longer than you would by a mile.” 

 

His anger switched to her but when he made to reply, the world around them started fading. Sally felt almost victorious when his wrath bled into human fear, just as the darkness consumed her sight. 

 

Sally opened her eyes to a sunset and that roused her soul a little, fed her a little more hope. She glanced around at the world she’d appeared in, on top of a hill unfortunately, and in the distance she saw a house. It was large and grand, but the architecture… it reminded her of a teaset her grandmother had had. Supposedly her grandfather had brought it back from the Orient. 

 

The happy memory faded under a colder realization. She slid down off the hill, stumbling under her weight hitting the ground. This was Rin’s home. She slid along the edge of the arena, blocked in by the walls that didn’t fit this place, until she was parallel with the door. 

 

In the distance, she heard a masculine scream. The edge of it was not Philip’s voice. Even though she did not like the man, her healer’s heart hurt for Carter. But that was distant - she knew he was not in the house, so she moved forward, past the beautiful swirled sand and into the dwelling.

 

The place was a mess but it had a more haunted air than the one that large white house had given. The room she entered seemed like it had been a… dining room, once? There was a table thrown against the wall, cushions on the ground. The table would have been low and she wondered if they sat on the cushions on the floor. How strange. 

 

The idle musing that had come over her was distracted by a photo across the room, so she moved towards it. A man, a woman, and a young girl. Sally’s heart broke when she realized she was staring at a much younger Rin, smiling and free of any pain. There was no trauma, no sorrow in her face. 

 

Sally turned away, the pain too much to bear, and her eyes traced the cushions. Worn, stained… but one had a pink flower pattern, just a touch smaller. The reality of this home wrapped around the redhead and made it hard for her to breathe. She pushed herself into the hallway and the mock sunset outside glittered on various shards of glass on the floor. The decorations on the wall were beautiful artwork, but something about that glass was… unholy. She glanced up and realized someone had fallen through glass from the rooms above. The glass was in a dried pool of blood. Sickening realization was swimming towards the surface as she rushed into the other room, where she was met with a… shrine? The mask was demonic, but the altar below was set up beautifully. She moved closer and saw the stick on it was burning softly, as if lit only moments before. Above the table, there was a holder that displayed a short… sword? In a sheath. There was an empty holder below it. More realization clawed at her. 

 

In the distance, a generator roared to life and she was shaken from her daze. She turned to the generator that shared the room with her and began to work on it. A few moments later, she started hearing… sobbing? She was about to stand up when a hand grabbed her collar and hauled her up onto a bare shoulder. Glass dug into her stomach and Sally screamed. 

 

The walk to the hook was a shaking shamble that etched pain into Sally. She cried out helplessly when the hook tore into her shoulder but then… the daze returned. She stared at the woman, tall and pale. Her body had been cut into pieces but still twitched and functioned as a whole. Her bandaging covered none of the wounds. 

 

Sally’s eyes found Rin’s face and tears streamed from blue eyes. Rin had no hatred on her face - she was sobbing, crying as her body twitched this way and that. Her eyes glowed white, nothing like the glittering obsidian that had held such intelligence, such strength, before. 

 

In an instant, Rin disappeared, the sounds of her sobbing vanished. Sally dangled and barely noticed when Philip lifted her and set her down, murmuring reassurance while he tended her wounds. 

 

“This is her childhood home,” Sally breathed, hopelessly. 

“I know.”

“Her parents… there’s a picture… the little cushion…” 

“I know, dear.” They both straightened at the same time and Sally took a moment to embrace him, to draw comfort. 

 

He screamed in her ear and collapsed. Sally couldn’t catch him and found herself face to face with Rin, who had anger on her face now. She was about to swing that shattered bloody blade at Sally, but the exit doors sounded their horn. Anna had been busy.

 

Rin shrieked, spinning in a circle as if searching for something. Then she went still, just the twitching, and Sally was backing away slowly. Then, all at once, she was gone again. Silence. 

 

She went for Philip but he groaned and crawling an inch away. “The door,” he rasped, gesturing. “Get it.” It was just a few yards away. Sally felt guilt, but she went for the door, pulling down the handle and waited those terrifying, long seconds. 

 

When the door slid open, she turned to heal Philip and get him standing again. A shout echoed and she looked up in confusion to find Carter booking it for the exit, blood on his white coat and fear in his eyes. Behind him appeared the spirit and one swing brought him down. Sally watched as Rin paused over the downed man, her white eyes moving from the prey just before her to the two so close to the gate. Philip was still down, Sally hadn’t gotten him back up yet. 

 

The redhead didn’t stop in her mending, but she realized that if Rin appeared before them, the spirit could chase her off and keep Philip for a hook. Her heart ached in fear - what if this was the trial that took Philip from her? 

 

She steeled herself with the thought that he was stronger than that - that he would never leave her in such a fashion. She was iron trying to keep the others together, but he was keeping her upright. He would not abandon her, even if she lost him here - but she would get knocked to the ground before she let Rin take him. 

 

But as Philip finally stood, Rin disappeared. Carter started shoving himself to standing, even though nothing should have let him. Sally urged Philip towards the gate, but both of their eyes were locked on the standing doctor. He was angry, angry that neither of them had lifted a hand to try to save him. He took a step forward, that step menacing, and then in a hail of blood, a blade appeared in his chest. He looked down in shock, so he didn’t see Rin’s face over his left shoulder. The spirit shoved him off of the blade and then hacked at his down form, once, twice, again. Then she screamed at his dying body, all the rage contained in her communicated through the noise. 

 

It echoed darkly in Philip and Sally’s minds. Sally hesitated herself this time, her mind flickering to the picture in the house. What… what had happened here that turned that precious little round-faced girl into a being of so much sorrow and rage? 

 

Philip had her hand and they ran towards the door. They escaped as the aura of sobs reached them, spreading like ice across their souls. 


	6. The Sliding Scale

What a mess. Herman Carter eyed the shambles his lovely institute had become, wondering which ones had been the last who left. He barely remembered any of his assistants, any of the other scientists who had walked these halls - but he remembered his victims. In passing memories, their wide eyes as they convulsed. Brilliant green, almost turquoise, steel, so light a brown it was almost yellow, so dark a brown it was almost black, a blue with swirls of yellow? how peculiar, a green with circles of brown. Their eyes always faded to shades of gray as they passed, because usually by that point the electricity had fried them and they had stopped being useful to him.

His heels clicked on the tiles, just as they had so many years before. He knew this was a mock-up of his institute - the god here had told him so, said he would be most comfortable here. He wasn’t sure how accurate that was - it was filthy - but he at least knew his way around.

Momentarily, he was aware of his own breathing as it echoed off of the walls - he rasped now, he wheezed almost, and while he found it minutely annoying, he understood. His appearance had to be fearsome, like that twisted little woman in the swamp... Like that awful Asian girl. 

 

Shaking his head, he banished her from his thoughts. He wasn’t afraid of  _ her _ . Obviously. He returned his thoughts to his horrid appearance and would have grinned if he could have. He’d never introduced horror into his therapy sessions, but there was no time like the present, eh?

He stepped into his office and found that the room was still illuminated in yellow. His office now, at least. It had belonged to Stamper once, long ago - but he had taken care of that.

_ The dull gray eyes stared up at the ceiling. Carter pulled off his gloves and dropped them into the rubbish bin beside the chair, beside the body. He’d started out with such promise, a steadfast German spy. His eyes had been steel before, his ironclad will so vibrant, but that had only excited Carter further. The strongest always took the longest to break, but finding out what broke them was one of his favorite things to do. Every mind a puzzle, every break a success, every day another step towards total understanding. _

_ He knew now everything the spy had been hiding - in the end, the spy had given him the government secrets, all of his family, and even his dog’s name, though the last had been asked in half-hysterical jest. Carter hadn’t really cared, but the panicked tone had given him a blissful high. After all of the confessions, the doctor had reached for the dial on the machine beside the chair and, for the first time, twisted it completely to the right. The spy had only one short scream before his entire body seized and his eyes went that lovely shade of gray. _

_ But now the gray was less interesting. He would need to get a janitor to clean up the body - that was below his station. He took his clipboard and made his way towards Stamper’s office. _

_ Stamper was a man of middle height, brown hair and blue eyes. He was the dullest man that Carter had ever laid eyes on and that was part of his charm. No one would have ever suspected Stamper of any of the atrocities he had committed. _

_ Carter hid his talents behind a winsome smile and laughing eyes. He knew what a little bit of charm could do and he’d used it to take patients off-guard before the treatment began. Convince them it’s good for them - then show them the truth. _

_ The dull man was behind his desk, idly sorting through paperwork, when Carter strolled in. He’d settled himself in a seat before slapping the clipboard on top of the other man’s papers. “Got the info you wanted, Stamper. Have a new assignment for me?” _

_ “Too soon, Carter. Cool your heels a bit, I’ll have something for you tomorrow. If not something important, then one of the damned degenerates in the facility.” _

_ The dark man half-frowned. “No one here is any fun, Stamper - all too easy. When are you gonna promote me - send me to the big boys?” _

_ Stamper hesitated, the clipboard in his hands. He flipped through the pages, but he was clearly not reading them. “They are… hesitant to take you on, Carter.” _

_ “Oh?” _

_ “Hesitant and foolish, but I can’t control them,” he shrugged. “I can only plead so hard for one case.” _

_ Carter frowned harder, his usually bright eyes becoming stormy. “I suppose I’ll have to prove myself then, eh?” He stood, the chair scraping sharply against the wood.  _

_ Stamper didn’t notice the danger in the man as he left. What a fatal mistake. _

_ \-- _

_ He’d broken everyone in the facility. Every agent, every guard, every scientist. He twirled around the chair, hearing the man tied to the chair whimper in fear. “Stamper, I have to tell you - I’ve always wanted to know what it takes to break you. You’re so calm, you never bat an eye at anything horrendous - but I bet you break real easy under my newly developed methods. Experimental, really. But you’ll see… won’t you?” _

_ It was peeling his skin back that was the messiest part. Carter had never really liked mess, but the skin had to go to free up the skull. The skull had to go to let him get to his true goal - Stamper’s pulsing brain. He was still alive, still aware - the drugs they had been given access to were wonders indeed. _

_ There was a sickening squelch every time Carter settled an electrode into Stamper’s brain. Three on each side, perfect symmetry, then a line connecting them all down the middle. This should be his greatest experiment yet - he was certain the wavelength that he was about to pulse into Stamper’s brain would render him a commandable automaton. Mind control - how valuable it would be. Those higher ranked buffoons would have to respect him. _

_ He eyed his handiwork with a manic grin, then reached towards his machine - the electricity was crucial. He fidgeted with the dials, tossed a few switches, and then he started it. _

_ At first, the electricity seemed to be working. Stamper’s face was sinking into blankness, into obedience, then there was a wisp of smoke twisting out of his exposed brain. It was followed by a small column and with a sigh, Carter reached for the machine, powered it down. “I should have known you weren’t cut out for this.” He said, tugging off his gloves. He rinsed off his hands in the adjacent bathroom, tightened his belt, and left. This place, he’d claimed it utterly - but there was nothing interesting about it anymore. _

Carter moved over to the painting nearest the door, frowning. It was different - once the glossy brown frame had displayed a smiling older man, one of the founders of Lery’s Memorial. Now the portrait was of a burned building, the ruins of some structure… He frowned as best he could through his mouth apparatus, peering closer. The ruins were familiar, somehow, and it wasn’t until he imagined the completed archway that he saw it. Crotus Prenn Asylum - he’d read about it in school not so long ago. It had burned down in the fifties, after one of the nurses strangled almost all of the patients. The building was strange though, an odd formation above the roof, something Satanic. That hadn’t been in the textbook photo.

He couldn’t comprehend why it was here, but the echoing in his mind told him to wait. With a scoff, he moved on, towards the control room. His colleagues had once used it to observe the hallways and the patients in their rooms. The screens were still active, but they were staticky. With a sigh, he climbed up to the second floor and started fidgeting with the control panel. After a little maneuvering, he glanced back up and the screens were alternating between the various cameras in the facility. He perked up a little, pleased with himself, then noticed that he had…  _ guests  _ . In the corner of the perimeter, in the yellow ward, he saw the little in-shock redhead. In the blue ward, the other man, Philip was his name, he thought. Finally, outside but still locked in, that strange girl with the tiger mask. She seemed hesitant to enter the facility, put off by the bright lights. He traced her features with his gaze, and then started down. It would be rude to not greet his new patients, wouldn’t it?

\---

“Wake,” the voice was a command and Philip had no choice but to listen. His brown eyes fluttered open and he focused on the tiger above him. Anna leaned back, removing her hand from his shoulder. She looked tense and that struck anxiety into his heart. He lurched up, the drum in his chest erratic, but he calmed when he saw the glint of red hair on the other side of the fire. Sally was still asleep, curled up against one of the logs, but she was there. She hadn’t been taken by the fog, by that ghastly ethereal chill. He took a deep breath.

“She is not who was taken from us… though I cannot say we lost anything valuable.” Her words were matched with a disdainful expression. He noticed the absence of the laughing man - his flashing eyes. He remembered how those eyes had changed when he stood, then when the sword had come through his chest. 

 

He hadn’t recognized Rin… he hadn’t recognized Lisa before either. Her awful appearance and the terrible point she had wanted to prove. “  _ You won’t be able to save her, you know.  _ ” His jaw tightened - he refused to believe that. He could keep her upright.

He moved when he saw the red tresses shift, settling near her as she woke. Her eyes were weary - seeing Rin had stolen another piece of her, a bigger piece this time. He helped her sit up and she leaned against his side, seeming to gather some stability from him. Anna watched them both across the fire, and there was something in her eyes, some dark dismal knowledge, that vanished the second Philip looked up at her again.

“Hunting would likely do us no good,” the strange girl finally commented, casting her shadowed eyes to the sky. She missed the world before, the twinkling lights that created stories across the heavens. This sky was forgery.

When her gaze returned to the people across the fire, her face was unreadable. Sally offered her a nod of agreement, though she was tracing the flames. The flickers were almost hypnotic, and for several long moments, she was able to leave. There were no trials, no arenas, no one, just the moving flames.

\--

She became aware of herself again and Philip was no longer there. The fire had been replaced with debris, filling a set of dirty hallways. Panic filled her at the thought of a new arena, a new torture chamber, but she clenched her teeth and started moving. She needed to find Philip and Anna - needed to make sure that whatever was hunting them didn’t get the other two.

Abruptly far down the hall, a scream echoed off the walls. It was half-shock, half-fear, but the most concerning was that it was female - Anna. Sally took off towards the sound and she stumbled to a stop only when she saw the electricity crackling through the floor, rolling towards her like waves. She didn’t have enough time to get away and the second the current reached her feet, she screamed. Somehow in her head, she heard a manic giggle in response to the scream.

She swayed against the wall, feeling the electricity still coursing through her. Anna screamed again, elsewhere in the building, and then the electricity receded from Sally. She was shaking, unable to calm her trembling hands, as she moved farther into the halls. This was a trial, there had to be generators… had to be something solid somewhere. She found one in a room that had likely once been a shared shower area and she started working on it.

A distant shout told her Anna was injured - but in the usually wrathful sound, there was fear. A second later, her quavering hands slipped. The generator rocked and fired off, causing Sally to stumble back. She’d never failed this severely before - she hadn’t realized they  _ could  _ make mistakes with the machinery.

She heard another pained scream, but this time she knew Anna was on a hook. She must have missed the second blow. She moved away from her mechanical failure and started working her way through the building towards her friend.

Philip screamed next, but he was a great deal away from Anna. Sally started running towards the hooked girl, coming around a corner and reaching for her immediately. Anna’s eyes were wide, jerking around in clear terror, and she didn’t seem to recognize Sally.

As her feet touched the floor again, she cried out something in a language Sally didn’t recognize, and tore off as if Sally herself was a threat. The redhead took a couple steps after her, then the electricity rolled over her again. She gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to scream, as the electricity built up within. Finally, she screamed again, holding her head. When she had no more air, she realized her eyes were closed.

The visage she opened them to nearly made her scream again. Just a little ways down the hall stood Carter, or… or what was left of him. His bared teeth, his glowing eyes… had his veins been replaced with electric wires? She covered her mouth and then he raised a fist. The shock tore through her again and she blinked, choking on another scream. The next time she saw the hallway, he was gone.

Everything was… blurred, trembling. She trailed a hand down the wall as she staggered through the building. She didn’t remember why she was here… what she had been doing. She heard another scream, someone else’s… only a tiger came to mind. A tiger that was in danger.

She hissed softly and stopped. She was here for a reason, she was here for… Was he behind her? She spun to find more empty space, no eyes watching her. She whimpered softly, her hands reflexively running through her hair.

When had she gotten into an office? The yellow lighting was different here, less stark, and there were books scattered on shelves. The paintings’ muted colors and dismal images drew her attention. The cornfields - like where Tommy… what had been Tommy… was. There was a forest, a log cabin in the next. Who had lived there? In so dismal a place… The final painting made her freeze. The walls, the archway… Crotus. She remembered Crotus, remembered the therapy the patients had endured. She’d held their hands as they stumbled and shook and… hallucinated.

She crouched down, clutching her head once more. She had to snap out of it, come back to herself. She had work to do.

_ He wasn’t near her, she was safe, the man called Herman Carter was elsewhere, she was- The pale girl, under her own hands, hands wrapped around the pallored throat. Her wide eyes. _

Sally screamed.

_ No, no, she would have never… The shocking had done this, she had to wake up, she had to take care of Anna, Philip - The catatonic boy, clutching a wooden horse. He wouldn’t even fight back as her hands took the pillow and - _

Another scream to chase away the delusion - the memory?! Which was it?!

_ She had to focus… but she’d failed everyone. Philip, Anna, Tommy, Lisa… her patients in what felt like another life… everyone. Why focus, why bother when… _

“Sally…” the voice was soft, luring her back towards the office. She didn’t want to go back there, back to the shocking and the screaming… Caught between fear and despair, Sally was struggling to stay in the limbo, without falling shrieking into a mental abyss. She felt distantly that she was shaking her head, mumbling the word no.

“Sally, Sally… please.” The tone had become pleading, beseeching, and she couldn’t bring herself to answer the call.

Then, she was back in her own mind. She blinked at Philip’s face, just a breath away, and remembered distantly the gentle brush of lips against her own, remembered it through the fog of where ever she had been.

“Sally?” His tone was still concerned, fretting, and she slowly nodded. The relief was brilliant for a moment, before his eyes turned to the door, the hallways. “Anna’s been giving him a run… we need to work or else we’ll fail this trial.”

His words reminded her of duty. She couldn’t dwell on the gentleness he’d shown her, the small act of affection, and the way he had drawn her away from the howling void. She had a feeling that he was the only one who could have - her fingertips had been losing the ledge, but he’d pulled her back up with something as simple as a kiss.

She followed him to a generator and they worked together, somehow feeling like they worked more quickly than they ever had.

They hadn’t heard Anna’s screaming in a long time by the time they finished the second generator between them. Sally was growing fearful, the worry in her heart consuming. He’d led her to a third generator, but she shook her head. “Anna,” she said simply. It was enough to communicate both intentions and instruction.

She heard the beginning whirs of the machine behind her as she started into another dirty hallway. This time, she was searching for the waves of current, waiting for them to crash over her feet. Finally, she heard the rapid heartbeat, and she entered a circular room.

Anna was crumpled on the floor, illuminated by the screens and sickly yellow light. The only noises coming from her were whimpers - edged with crying. Standing over her was Carter, his manic face full of glee.

“Strong ‘ind,” he slurred through the mouthguard. “Sssoo strong - ‘ith her ‘ill, iron… ‘ut all ‘etal ‘reaks… under the right ‘ressure…” He held up his hand, the tiger mask clasped in it. A trophy. “‘et I could ‘reak you too, Sssssaaaalllly.”

She watched him set the mask aside and he reached for the girl on the floor. He focused her to look up, at him, the screens, his fingertips pressed to her temples. 

 

Sally saw Anna’s face for the first time - a girl of probably only twenty, maybe more, her high cheekbones. Her eyes were large and dark in that face, and Sally didn’t recognize the fear in them. Then the riotous crackling of electricity broke through the fog, canceled out the noises of the screens, through the heaving heartbeat.

Anna screamed for the last time, then she was still. Her dark brown eyes had faded, staring blankly into forever.

Sally stumbled a step back, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a silent scream. She spun and she ran, her adrenaline overwhelming the guilt rolling through her heart.

She heard Philip shout her name and she followed the sound without thinking, desperate. She could hear the whistling wheezing of the doctor behind her, catching up.

Philip had finished the final two generators while she searched and witnessed Carter’s sadism. He was standing beside an open gate, his hand out for her. The doctor’s weapon tore through her back and she cried out, rushing past the man. He followed her out, keeping the doctor from landing another blow, and then they raced towards the light, the ever-burning flames. Again.


	7. The Will of a Lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **!!! Trigger Warning: Rape/Noncon/Sexual Abuse - Proceed with caution. !!!  
> **

She was home.

For a moment, she took in the familiar trees, the wood piles, the stone. So familiar, so safe, so much that she’d missed. Then a flicker of lightning seemed to cross her eyes and she shook her head, reaching for her temple. Lightning, the scent of electricity… no, no, that didn’t belong here, in her home that smelled like loam and rain.

When Anna cast her eyes around again, she began noticing the differences. Small ones at first, where the trees that she had wandered for so long had limbs in the wrong places, and then in the distance she saw the structures. Wooden logs similar to the materials that built her home, piled up into pointless, absolutely useless walls. Her lip curled in distaste and she made her way over to the new manmade - no, creature-made - outcropping. She scanned the new structure and felt the memories slowly creep back. The fog, the electricity, the others, and then her final… the lights that ended it all. She was grateful for the pouring dim that surrounded her now, unable to suppress a shudder of remembrance. At least she would never again have to touch one of those awful machines.

She closed her eyes and remembered in the darkness after the light, the promise of freedom from the tethered lightning, just hunt for it. The creature, the spiked being in the sky, just wanted her to hunt what was provided. She drew her axe from her belt as she opened her eyes, scanning the bloodstained weapon. She was no stranger to hunting - she had struck down even the most intelligent prey in the starry skied world before this one.

_She hated the silence, the rain on the trees offered a hollow echo on the periphery of her awareness. It was white noise, like the crackling fire in the smokehouse, the sharp hacking of her axe. All of it accompanied the ache of muscles that had not known rest since the life faded from her mother’s eyes._

_Her mother… she had been a powerful being, but her drive had been daunting, overwhelming any obstacle. As far as Anna could remember, it had only been her and Mama, until it was only her. But as a child, a curious small one in this desolate place, Anna had coaxed stories out of the proud Russian woman._

~  


_“The picture,” she’d asked once, “there is you, but who else?”_

_“Your Papa, sestra. They are gone.” Mama had never once looked up from her task, preparing meat for smoking. Her tone had not even wavered, but Anna knew that she had tripped upon something important._

_“Where are they, then? Why are they not here?”_

_“They would be here if they could, zayka,” there was the briefest hint of tiredness in Mama’s hard tone. “They were taken from us, by the others. Others are evil.”_

_Anna knew the lesson - she was never to approach another person. They would take her away, hurt them, destroy their home. If she spotted anyone among the trees, she was to report to Mama immediately._

_“Did they hunt them? The others?”_

_“No, zayka,” the knife came down hard, embedding in the wood. Mama moved to a bucket of water on the side table, washing the blood off her hands and drying them on the cloth over her hips. She sat down and gestured the child closer, then drew her into her lap. “Before we were here, we lived with the others, when you were a little one. In the picture, you are there - wrapped in my arms. We did not know how evil the others were then. When we realized, your Papa, sestra, and I, we tried to run, come here where we would be safe. But the others caught us. Your Papa, he told me to run with you.” Her earth-filled eyes focused on the picture. The faraway focus allowed the candlelight to tease amber from their depths. “So I did. I had hoped, perhaps, they would catch up to us, but they never did.”_

_“We could hunt the others, Mama. Hurt them like they did… Papa.”_

_Mama chuckled, the bitter mirth filling her eyes with fire. “Little zayka, I would, but I have you to look out for. If I were gone, who would keep your feet from the mud?”_

_Anna smiled up at her mother, her entire world, and did not answer. She could not perceive of a world where Mama did not exist. She could not even push herself to imagine it._

 ~

_Even now, belief was a struggle - there were days that she still expected to turn a corner and hear her mother’s scolding, usually at her lack of shoes. After she had outgrown the final set her mother cobbled together, she had just gotten used to the rocks and dirt beneath her feet. There was a part of her that believed that, just maybe, traipsing about barefoot in the mud would summon her mother back, if only to chide her._

_She started humming to fill the silence, her own tones reverberating off of the walls back to her. That was barely enough to stave off that mad energy in her veins, that rose in the presence of silence. She finished the task, splitting logs for future fires, and started out to check on the smokehouse._

_In the tall grass rising around the timber building, she saw signs of disturbance. Trampled stalks in areas she had not previously bothered. With a frown, she moved forward, quietly as if she were stalking prey. Within the walls, she heard voices, one low and rough, the other high and tremulous. She moved to the open door and found the two interlopers - a man and a girl. The girl saw her first and screamed, the man turned and brought out a glinting thing. Then he fell. Anna hadn’t registered her own cry when she flung the axe, but it came back to her in echoes, momentary memory._

_“Papa!” The girl gasped, her eyes shifting between the intimidating creature at the door, and her father’s wide, empty eyes. His forehead was cleaved by the axe, the haft of it following the line of his nose.  A clean shot, as always._

_Anna studied the girl, who had backed into a corner away from the fire, away from the door. “Stay,” her voice was rough, both to her own ears and the girl who flinched. Anna moved forward, reached down and jerked the axe from the man’s head. She cleaned it on her shirt hem, then her eyes returned to the child._

_The little one was trembling, clutching her coat tightly around her as the woman studied her with bright eyes, intense interest. Anna knew the girl posed no threat to her and she had been alone so long. The loneliness became an abrupt weight, but only for a moment - she was alone no longer. This child, this girl, could free her from that._

_“Come,” she said, gesturing. The girl hesitated, then slowly walked over, fear plain on her face. Anna took her wrist, as Mama had done long ago to her, and pulled her from the smokehouse, towards the house._

 ~

_Her little zayka hung from the rafter near the door, her face blank and finally free of fear. Anna stood in shock, her hand on the doorknob. The silence crowded her, the loneliness building like pressure in her head._

_By the time the last handful of dirt covered her little one, Anna was certain she would not live in this silence any longer._

_She remembered each girl’s face, which mask they preferred, what food tempted them to eat. All of her little ones stayed with her, each loss driving home that desperate loneliness, until it was all she felt, all she understood._

_This was the Anna the soldiers faced. Stomping through her land with their shining sticks, their contained fire, but it was no match for her. A huntress shaped by the cold forests, carved into inhumanity by endless loss._

_All they’d found were hatchet-torn bodies._

 

Yes, Anna was no stranger to hunting. She had revelled in the soldiers she killed, none of which know her home like she did. No one could know this land like she did - her blood, sweat and tears had fed it. Her mother’s life was in it. Her land.

But… this was not her land. This was a mimicry - something weaved together by the entity in the sky. She could feel its presence in the back of her mind - it? She tried to feel it out, this being, and she recognized… shreds of humanity?

There was a burst of light behind her eyes and she screamed, pressing her palms into her eyes until the pain faded. It was a warning - like a hive of wasps, too close to something meant punishment. She snarled a little, shaking her head.

_Hunt_ . It said, insistently. _Hunt, for I have provided the prey._

So she would hunt. She didn’t remember getting into the house, nor how the rabbit mask got into her hands, but she slid it on. In the quietness of the soft rain, the humming began.

 

\---

 

Sally woke to tears on her face. Her own tears, from her breaking heart. When she sat up, she saw Philip across the fire, staring into it in shock. He too realized the weight of what it meant that only two were left to wake. One of them would be next to fall.

The redhead closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself. She pulled up memories, recent ones, of all of them crowded around the fire. Tommy’s hand in hers. Lisa and Rin sitting together. Anna studying the stars like she knew their meaning. In her idyllic vision, there was no Evan, there was no Carter. Philip was beside her and his arm was around her shoulders.

She opened her eyes and at least the last was reality. She leaned into the dark man, eyes on the fire. “It will be one of us, next,” she said softly.

The heartbreak in the phrase, the despair, strengthened Philip somehow. “No, no, Sally. We’re strong, we can keep each other standing.” He encouraged, and she didn’t seem convinced. He turned to face her on the log, taking her chin and lifting her face. “Sally… we are strong. We must only endure pain - and I think we both endured long lives before we came here. Long, hard lives. Pain is no stranger to us.”

“But the others-”

“Children, or evil men, Sally. Evil men who want to hurt - or children too pure to take that much pain. We are not the same - we are the only ones left because our wills are strong.”

Sally’s eyes were shining in a way that made his heart ache, tears beginning to threaten the corners. “But… I failed everyone, all the children. I failed them and there’s no way to repair it.”

Philip leaned closer, kissing her forehead. “You were against impossible odds - we all were. We tried to keep the others afloat, at risk of drowning ourselves. But we haven’t drowned - and we won’t break. Do you hear me, Sally?”

The little nurse focused on his eyes - so sure, so unwavering. He was certain they could. And she wanted to believe him, wanted to take that surety and wrap it around herself like a quilt. But there was doubt, deep in the pit of her stomach. She spoke with a small tremble in her voice. “We’ll keep each other afloat - we won’t drown.”

He smiled and nodded, gathering her close to him. As the firelight began to fade, his head was descending to hers.

_But there was doubt._

_But there was doubt._

\--

Sally found herself in a cold forest, rain dropping onto her shoulders and invading her clothing. The warmth of Philip’s arms was a memory, but one she clung to as she started maneuvering around the logs and trees. They wouldn’t break - they wouldn’t drown. They wouldn’t, they… wouldn’t.

She started working on a generator and then, very distantly, she heard… humming? A woman’s voice humming an old lullaby - a familiar woman’s voice. Sally started to stand when she realized it was Anna and the generator short-circuited, exploding around her hands. Sally cried out.

The humming approached, soon accompanied by the heartbeat. Sally ducked around the log pile as Anna appeared. The huntress eyed the machine in apparent distaste and then, with a bit of happiness, kicked it twice to damage it. She had always hated them.

But the Anna that Sally saw was different - not just the rabbit mask, but Anna was older. Her shoulders’ broader and her arms stronger, she looked much more intimidating than the girl that Sally had known.

Anna looked up and caught sight of the wisp of red hair around the corner. She stepped forward and lunged, earning a cry from the nurse that started fleeing, holding the injury.

The huntress was in pursuit now, and she watched the way that her prey ran - straight. She readied an axe and let it fly, the blade of it burying itself in her spine. Sally screamed and collapsed.

She was limp as the Russian woman hauled her up and started walking, that hum ringing in her ears. Sally only opened her eyes again when she was hooked, screaming, on a hill. Then the huntress moved away.

Even though the hook and injuries were agonizing, Sally knew she could endure more of this. Perhaps… perhaps Philip was right. Perhaps they wouldn’t drown.

And there he was, lifting her gently and setting her down. She almost smiled through the pain, relieved to see him, then a whirling axe went over their heads, colliding with the hook. She saw the huntress in the distance readying another one.

“Go heal,” he whispered, then jumped off the hill and ran. The huntress followed the moving prey and Sally ducked behind a rock to start mending her injury.

In no time at all, the huntress had Philip down. Sally heard him scream from underneath the center house. Sally stopped her healing, her wounds only half-stitched, and she started towards the house.

The humming was gone and she ran into the basement. Philip was dangling from the hook facing the stairs. Just as she unhooked him, the humming returned.

They met her on the stairs. Sally fell first and Philip, desperation in his eyes, dodged around the huntress to drag her away. He was down too quickly to be of much use.

Sally had crawled down to hide in the basement, behind the wall by the stairs. Anna stepped past her to hook Philip, who immediately had to defend against the entity’s claws. The huntress turned towards Sally and stepped up to her, raising a hatchet. Sally met her dark eyes through the mask, tears in her own, and the huntress paused. She seemed to be listening to an outside voice, one that neither Philip nor Sally could hear. She lifted the hatchet again, then shook her head, dropping it. The red light vanished from her, the heartbeat was gone.

“No, I will not,” came the Russian’s gruff.. Response? “I will not kill her.” The huntress was still, then abruptly screaming, clutching at her head. “No, no, NO, NONO! _NO I WILL NOT KILL HER._ ”

There was a screech from the heavens. The world flickered, went black, swirling all around them. Sally caught a glimpse of a distant room shrouded in darkness, a pair of dark red eyes gleaming in an endless void. Then she and Philip were back in the basement. He was still hanging, fighting for his life, but Anna was no longer standing there.

No, Evan was standing there. And he was staring down at Sally with a hatred that surpassed words.

He tilted his head, as if listening to something. Philip almost heard a whisper above his head, burrowing into his skull. The whisper brought only despair.

_You cannot save her, you are helpless_

No! He could save her - they could endure. They were strong and they _would_ survive. They could endure any pain, as long as they had each other. As long as they…

Did he hear something chuckle? Not anyone alive in this room, but distantly… He shook his head, shoving at the spine that reached so insistently for his neck. His eyes returned to Sally, just as Evan dropped his cleaver. Dropped his..?

Philip felt an untouchable ice fill his heart as Evan went down on one knee, reaching for the prone redhead. One large, scarred hand ripped her dress from her.

“ _NO!_ ” Philip didn’t need to understand the whispers, nor understand the swirling memories of a foreman’s wife screaming in Evan’s head, to know what was happening.

The trapper was methodical, no amount of useless flailing from his victim, or screams from either of the survivors, could dissuade him from his entity-blessed task. The scene felt so familiar - a man bound to watch woman he loved destroyed.

Evan enjoyed that. What he enjoyed more was the redhead under him - the one that had tried to reprimand him, denied him kills, taunted him with her facade of strength and will. All of that came crumbling down under his own strength, that far surpassed hers. The pain on her face introduced an ecstasy into Evan that he had never even dreamed of before.

But he knew his task was not to break her will. Evan raised his face and beneath the trapper’s mask, Philip met his eyes. In those dark, feverish, sadistic eyes, Philip finally understood.

He could not save her. There were too many ways for them to be hurt beyond mere hooks and blades - and their intertwining hearts only increased the amount of pain they could endure without even being touched.

Philip Ojomo’s hands slipped off of the spine, his will broken. The whispers in the dark consumed his mind as the spines offered him to the dark creature in the heavens.

Even as his damned spirit rose, he could still hear her crying.


End file.
